EPA’s New Rule Preserves Current Level of Demand Response Payments
January 15, 2013
The Environmental Protection Agency announced a new rule on Monday that allows diesel generators to run for 100 hours per year. The EPA had been working on a rule to limit the amount of time diesel generators can run without environmental safeguards. It was expected that the EPA would limit the generators to 15 hours per year, but ended up sticking with the previous amount (100 hours per year). The rule is aimed at making sure generators can prevent blackouts. The EPA’s new rule preserves the ability to get paid for demand response programs. A reduction to 15 hours per year would have made the programs less attractive because people that didn’t previously have natural gas generators would have been required to buy them.
