EIA Grid Emissions Tool Aids Big Consumers’ Carbon-Cutting Goals

The carbon footprint of energy-guzzling clean technologies—such as electric vehicle charging, hydrogen production, and electrified building appliances—can now be better measured with newly released power grid emissions data.

The new data, published by the Energy Department’s data arm, measures hourly average carbon dioxide emissions that result from consuming electricity.

Consumers—particularly big corporations touting ambitious 24/7 net-zero goals—can target the time of day when grid emissions are lowest for energy uses that can be scheduled. The data can also help them prove they’re making progress on emissions reduction.

The nearly real-time numbers show emissions figures for each balancing authority. The country has more than five dozen such authorities, which include utilities, grid operators, and other entities tasked with matching supply and demand.

The new data set “gets to what I think people really want to know when they look at carbon and electricity,” said Tyson Brown, an economist at US Energy Information Administration who crunched the numbers. “The lights that are on in my apartment right now: What is the carbon intensity of that electricity?”

Hourly Tracking

The requirement to track and publish hourly emissions was tucked into the 2021 infrastructure law that provided tens of billions of dollars to the department for clean energy programs.

The numbers are valuable, energy experts say, as US power demand is expected to rise with the rollout of electric vehicle fleets and the transition away from fossil fuels in building appliances. Industrial and commercial consumers have adopted net-zero carbon goals and stepped up lobbying in Washington to lower barriers to connecting more renewable energy.

In 2022, big energy customers announced a record 17 gigawatts of new voluntary clean energy deals, with nearly 65 gigawatts procured since 2014, according to the Clean Energy Buyers Association, which has nearly 400 members.

While some third-party providers have similar data, it is often behind a paywall and not as accessible to all companies in a streamlined way, said Priya Barua, the association’s director of market and policy innovation. Some data may also be averages over a longer period of time, such as a day or a year.

The association has seen “an increasing number of companies that really wanted to be able to make sure their procurement decisions that they’re making are really driving toward decarbonization,” Barua said. “By having this information available through an organization like EIA, it would actually help more customers be able to do that.”

The EIA is providing “better insights into how an investment dollar into transportation, or buildings, or energy translates into real carbon out of the atmosphere,” said Chris Roe, director of energy and sustainable operations at Amazon, which led all companies in US voluntary clean energy procurement in 2022.

Amazon has purchased power from scores of utility-scale wind and solar projects and installed rooftop solar arrays. The company has a goal of powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025.

The tech giant is still studying the data’s potential, but it could link up electric vehicle charging and consumption by the company’s commercial buildings to times when the grid can supply clean energy, Roe said.

“This should be standard data available to everyone, not a bespoke thing that some utilities opt in or opt out,” Roe said. “We need this information everywhere.”

The Edison Electric Institute, a trade association of electric utilities, didn’t return a request for comment on the tracking of hourly emissions.

Shifting Consumption Time

Insights from the data are still being digested by researchers, said Karen Palmer, senior fellow with Resources for the Future and director of its Electric Power Program. Palmer wrote a report last year with recommendations for EIA, and the agency’s approach was in line with them, she said.

“When rates are more variable across hours, there are bigger potential emissions reductions from shifting consumption across hours,” Palmer said.

The data can reflect the influence of renewable power, which produces only when the wind blows and the sun shines—compared with natural gas, nuclear, and coal, which can produce power any hour of the day as long as there is fuel available.

The carbon emissions intensity from consumption on California’s power grid, for example, more than doubled from the afternoon to the late-evening hours on April 14, according to the data. Natural gas generation more than doubled as the sun set and solar panels stopped producing.

That same day, emissions intensity varied just 8% in PJM Interconnection, the country’s largest grid operator, which spans 13 states and the District of Columbia. PJM, driven by more round-the-clock generation from coal, nuclear and natural gas, also showed a 60% higher emissions intensity than California.

The EIA’s next steps include publishing marginal emissions, or the change in emissions that comes with a very small change to electricity demand. That would offer an even more targeted view so consumers can see the emissions effects of plugging into the grid at specific times—and precisely when to avoid it.

The EIA is working on a research design for how to achieve that. That endeavor likely requires new survey questions for utilities and would be subject to public comment and review by the Office of Management of Budget, which approves EIA surveys every three-year cycle that just started, Brown said.

A coalition of 40 clean energy groups and companies, led by the American Council on Renewable Energy, sent a letter on April 24 to congressional appropriators that called for a funding boost for the EIA, in part to upgrade its data.