EGRID

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This article is part of the CoalSwarm coverage of coal and power industry data

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Maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID) is a comprehensive inventory of environmental attributes of electric power systems. eGRID eGRID integrates data sources on power plants and power companies from three different federal agencies: EPA, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

eGRID tracks the following pollutants:

• nitrogen oxides (NOx)
• sulfur dioxide (SO2)
• carbon dioxide (CO2)
• mercury (Hg)

2008 Upgrade

EPA announced on September 29, 2008, that a forthcoming release of eGRID (scheduled for October 2008) would incorporate the following new features:

• Emissions and emission rates for two additional Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), namely methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), are included beginning at the plant level.
• Four new resource mix variables, combustion and noncombustion generation in terms of MWh and percent, are included beginning at the plant level.
• Seven new combustion output emission rates for each aggregation file — for ozone season NOx and annual NOx, SO2, CO2, CH4, N2O, and Hg — are included beginning at the plant level.
• New plant level flags indicate whether the plant burns any amount of coal, whether the plant combusts fuel, and whether the latitude and longitude values are based on the county centroid.

Applications

EPA

EPA uses eGRID as a key data source for tools and programs such as [Power Profiler http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/how-clean.html], Climate Leaders, [Portfolio Manager http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=evaluate_performance.bus_portfoliomanager], and [Personal Greenhouse Gas Emissions Calculator http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator.html].

Other federal agencies

eGRID is also used by other Federal Government agencies such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for their Combined Heat and Power Calculator, the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) for their sponsored Distributed National Carbon Sequestration Database and Geographic Information System (NATCARB), and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for their micropower distributed generation optimization model named HOMER.

States and regional programs

States rely on eGRID data for electricity labeling (environmental disclosure programs), emissions inventories, and registries (such as the California Climate Action Registry), and for policy decisions/impacts such as output based standards; many states also publish state specific eGRID data on the web.

RECS Tracking Systems, such as ISO-New England’s Generation Information System (GIS) and PJM Interconnection’s Generation Attribute Tracking System (GATS) utilize eGRID data.

Nongovernmental agencies

eGRID is used by nongovernmental organizations’ (NGOs) tools and analysis, including:

• Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM) analysis,
• Ozone Transport Commission’s (OTC) Emission Workbook, the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Initiative,
• Rocky Mountain Institute’s Community Energy Finder,
• Leonardo Academy’s “Cleaner and Greener Environmental Program,”
• National Resource Defense Council’s Benchmarking Air Emissions, and
• Emission Solution’s Carbon Footprint Calculator.