EPA proposal to ease data center turbine permitting advances
A HostDime data center is under construction in Eatonville, Florida. The US Environmental Protection Agency is moving to update certain permitting and other requirements for small gas-powered combustion turbines, which are increasingly being used to power data centers. Credit:
Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/Sipa via AP Images
The US Environmental Protection Agency sent its proposed nonroad combustion turbines rule to the White House for final review on Oct. 15.
The proposal is expected to allow qualifying portable turbines to be regulated as nonroad engines, a shift the EPA has said could ease permitting and compliance burdens for temporary power generation.
The development prompted some groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund, to reiterate their concerns that the proposal, if finalized, would exempt transportable gas-fired combustion turbines, increasingly used to power data centers, from pollution-control and permitting requirements that apply to stationary industrial power sources. “The ‘portability’ of the turbine doesn’t really affect its emissions profile; it is still just a combustion turbine,” Surbhi Sarang, an EDF senior attorney, tells C&EN.
