The Biden-Harris Administration has today (April 25) finalised its suite of standards to reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants, identifying CCS as “the best system of emission reduction.”

In May 2023, President Biden’s agenda added clean hydrogen and CCS technologies as potential solutions to decarbonise the power industry, however CCS will now be the focus due to it being “an available and cost-reasonable emission control technology that can be applied directly to power plants.”

The EPA initially planned to use low-carbon hydrogen for gas plants due to the fuel being “more cost-effective for power plants that operate at greater capacity, more frequently, or over longer time periods.”

However, it was reported that opponents of the plan previously warned that hydrogen technology might not be commercially ready for gas plants by 2030.

The EPA’s statement read, “Lower costs and improvements in CCS technology, alongside tax incentives from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that allow companies to largely offset the cost of CCS, represent recent developments in emissions controls that informed EPA’s determination of what is technically feasible and cost-reasonable.

“EPA projects that the sector can comply with the standards with negligible impact on electricity prices, thanks to cost declines in CCS and other emissions-reducing technologies. EPA analysis also finds that power companies can comply with the standards while meeting grid reliability, even when considering increased load growth.”

Across the Atlantic, the UK Government announced it would broaden its power sector plans last month (March), allowing for the conversion to low-carbon alternatives including hydrogen.

Read more: UK Government targets new ‘Net Zero ready’ gas-fired power plants

Under new laws, new gas plants are required to be built “Net Zero ready,” meaning they can convert to alternatives and run less frequently as the country rolls out other low-carbon tech.