Petitioners filed for review of two EPA rulemakings that revised the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines (the RICE NESHAP). Under the terms of the proposed settlement agreement, by April 20, 2012, the Agency will sign a notice of proposed rulemaking that includes a proposal to revise the RICE NESHAP and the stationary internal combustion engine new source performance standards (ICE NSPS) to allow owners and operators of emergency stationary internal combustion engines to operate emergency stationary internal combustion engines in emergency conditions, as defined in those regulations, as part of an emergency demand response program for 60 hours per year or the minimum hours required by Independent System Operator tariff, whichever is less. The notice of proposed rulemaking may also allow for more hours of operation. In addition, under the terms of the proposed settlement agreement, by December 14, 2012, the Administrator of EPA will sign a final action on this proposal, which may include signature of a final rule by the Administrator.

EPA Proposed Settlement Agreement

Thanks to the efforts of several of our readers the negotiations with the EPA concerning increasing the 15 hours/year for emergency Demand Response (DR) are going very well.  In addition, the EPA issued an approval for reconsideration of the NRECA petition which is asking for Peak Shaving relief.  Soon there will be a Federal Register (FR) notice asking for comments.  At that time we will prepare a write-up explaining what to comment on, when to submit the comments, and where they need to be sent.  We can also provide some boilerplate language you can use in crafting letters to the EPA.  The FR notice should appear in a few weeks.

Note:  Caution should be exercised before committing EPSS assets to long term DR contracts.  Four of the ten major points to consider include: age of equipment, critical load isolation, system redundancy and local air permitting issues.

NRECA Approval Letter

Dan Chisholm, Sr.
Emergency Power Consultant
Healthcare/Mission Critical Systems
PO 2474
Winter Park, FL 32790
407.421.7189