Document ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0708-1502
Agency: epa
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2013-01-17T05:00Z

From: "Cronmiller, Rae E." <rae.cronmiller@nreca.coop> 
To: Melanie King/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA, RobertJ Wayland/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA, Joseph Goffman/DC/USEPA/US@EPA, Peter 
Tsirigotis/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA 
Cc: "Cromwell, Ted T." <ted.cromwell@nreca.coop> 
Date: 10/31/2012 03:44 PM 
Subject: FW:
 
  
 
Greetings. NRECA has conferred with our membership regarding the issues raised in connection with the RICE June 
7, 2012 proposal. This e-mail and attachment represents our summary recommendations and answers to several 
questions posed by EPA over the several months. 
 
Regarding the following questions. Would your members be willing to file electronically with EPA on annual basis, 
hours and time durations of RICE dispatch for emergency demand response to begin in several years? Yes. We have 
to note that the utility knows when and why their dispatch of emergency RICE was ordered. However the utility has 
no way of knowing if the owner ran the unit for more or less than the time requested, although the total annual 
operated hours of each RICE would be recorded at the RICE site by a non resettable hours meter as required by the 
existing regulations. We also note that if the owner “takes the unit offline” without being dispatched by the utility, 
we would not know those hours of operation, but again, they would be recorded by the no resettable hours meter. 
 
Would you members be willing to use ultra low sulfur diesel fuel for RICE dispatched for emergency purposes? Yes, 
for emergency dispatch to maintain reliability at the sub-bulk power (non RTO/ ISO) level. We assume your question 
was directed at our efforts to broaden RICE emergency use at the local level to maintain local reliability. We have no 
position on whether those RICE responding to EE2 regional power alerts (capacity markets) for example would 
agree to an ultra low sulfur fuel mandate. 
 
The attachment provides text recommendations addressing the following areas: 1. Suggested Language in red 
identifying entity responsibility for ordering RICE dispatch following protocols necessary for maintaining local 
reliability as a follow up to Melanie’s question late last week. This language is an amendment to what was submitted 
earlier as 63.6640(f)(ii)(b) in effort to further define appropriate RICE emergency dispatch at the local level. We 
have included the background materials submitted earlier as well. 
 
2. For economic demand response beyond the 2017 sunset, we suggested in an earlier meeting with EPA to allow 
RICE operation beyond the sunset if the RICE was equipped with crankcase ventilation (CCV) and utilized ultra low 
sulfur diesel fuel along with the requirements included in Table 2d for emergency RICE (this could be defined as 
GACT). We have attached language pursuant to this earlier suggestion. 
 
3. For annual hours of operation, as we noted in our earlier written comments, the penalties for exceeding the 
annual cap are severe and not justified for accidental noncompliance. We believe defining compliance on a three 
your annual rolling average is equitably justified here. We have included language to allow compliance with both 
the 100 hour cap and the 50 hour economic demand response cap based on the three year rolling average 
concept. After all whether emergency or economic demand response, all RICE use here is unplanned and cannot be 
predicted months or even days ahead of time. 
 
Lastly we do appreciate all your efforts to understand our concerns that reliable and affordable and electric power 
be maintained throughout rural America. The last few days here in Washington D.C. area and the northeast corridor 
are vivid reminders of how important RICE generation can be in times of distress. Our members pride themselves in 
providing excellent power quality and reliability even in rural and remote areas. We endeavor to assist them in this 
RICE effort.  
 
Please feel free to contact us should you have any questions. 
 
 
 
 
Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the 
intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized 
review, copy, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, 
please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. (See 
attached file: NRECA RICE recommendations.docx)