Electricity generation is the dominant industrial source of air emissions in the United States today. Whenever you switch on an electrical appliance, chances are you are contributing to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. By documenting the environmental attributes of electric power generation, eGRID can help consumers to better understand the relationship between electricity and the environment. In the United States, electricity is generated in many different ways, with a wide variation in environmental impacts. In many states, power companies are required to disclose the environmental attributes of their retail electricity products. Many consumers now have a choice regarding the source of their electricity, and some seek cleaner sources, such as wind and solar power. Data from eGRID underlies EPA's Power Profiler application, which enables individual consumers to identify the environmental impacts of their own electricity usage. Power Profiler will soon be updated with the most current eGRID data.
For policymakers, eGRID data can be used to support the following activities:
* Greenhouse gas registries and inventories, * Consumer information disclosure, * Renewable portfolio standards, * Development of emissions inventories and emission standards, * Analysis of changing power markets, and * Estimation of avoided emissions.
The Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID) is a comprehensive inventory of environmental attributes of electric power systems. The preeminent source of air emissions data for the electric power sector, eGRID is based on available plant-specific data for all U.S. electricity generating plants that provide power to the electric grid and report data to the U.S. government. eGRID contains air emissions data for nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and mercury.
UPDATE (April 30, 2007): eGRID2006 Version 2.1 is released.
eGRID2006 Version 2.1 contains the complete release of year 2004 data. The data are organized to reflect the owner, operator and electric grid configuration as of October 1, 2006.
The first Microsoft Excel workbook contains boiler, generator, and plant spreadsheets. Seventeen plants have corrected resource mix since Version 2.0. The information includes fuel consumption, generation, and emissions data, along with plant identification, location, and structural information for nearly all electric generators in the United States.
A second Microsoft Excel workbook contains aggregated data by State, electric generating company, parent company, power control area, eGRID subregion, NERC region, and U.S. total levels. Total emissions, total generation, and emission rates are displayed for each of these levels of aggregation in a workbook.
The Microsoft Excel workbooks can be downloaded in the ZIP file below. Full documentation, summary data, an eGRID subregion representational map, and a NERC region representational map, are also released in this version.
eGRID2006 Version 2.1 (ZIP) (9M) contains the eGRID data in two Microsoft Excel workbooks, the technical support document in one Adobe PDF file, and summary tables in a second Adobe PDF file. The technical support document describes the sources and uses of data, the methodologies used for estimating emissions and other information, the 12 worksheets of data, and all the data elements.
EPA welcomes comments on this version of eGRID. If you have any general comments or wish to express the value of this information to you, please use the eGRID feedback form.
The previous edition, eGRID2002 Version 2.01, containing year 1996 through 2000 data is located on the eGRID Archive page.
The Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID) is a comprehensive inventory of environmental attributes of electric power systems. The preeminent source of emissions data for the electric power sector, eGRID is based on available plant-specific data for all U.S. electricity generating plants that provide power to the electric grid and report data to the U.S. government. Data reported include generation in megawatt-hour (MWh); resource mix (for renewable and nonrenewable generation); emissions in tons for nitrogen oxides (NOx,), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and carbon dioxide (CO2); emissions in pounds for mercury (Hg); emission rates for CO2, NOx, and SO2 (in both pounds per megawatt-hour [lb/MWh]) and pounds per million British thermal unit [lb/MMBtu]) and for mercury (in pounds per gigawatt-hour [lb/GWh] and pounds per billion Btu [lb/BBtu]); heat input in MMBtu; and nameplate capacity in megawatts (MW). eGRID reports this information on an annual basis (as well as by ozone season for NOx emissions, generation, and heat input) at different levels of aggregation (boiler, generator, plant, companies, and grid regions of the country).
A note about data scale:
Scale is an important factor in data usage. Certain scale datasets are not suitable for some project, analysis, or modeling purposes. Please be sure you are using the best available data.
1:24000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the county level. 1:24000 data should NOT be used for high accuracy base mapping such as property parcel boundaries. 1:100000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the multi-county or regional level. 1:125000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the regional or state level or larger.
Vector datasets with no defined scale or accuracy should be considered suspect. Make sure you are familiar with your data before using it for projects or analysis. Every effort has been made to supply the user with data documentation. For additional information, see the References section and the Data Source Contact section of this documentation. For more information regarding scale and accuracy, see our webpage at: <http://geoplan.ufl.edu/education.html>
eGRID2006 Version 2.1 (ZIP) (9M) contains the eGRID data in two Microsoft Excel workbooks, the technical support document in one Adobe PDF file, and summary tables in a second Adobe PDF file. The technical support document describes the sources and uses of data, the methodologies used for estimating emissions and other information, the 12 worksheets of data, and all the data elements.
<http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/egrid/index.html>
For more information on eGRID please see the following US EPA documentation: eGRID2006V2_1_TSD.pdf
There are 131 variables in EGRDPLNT. Some data may be outliers and should be viewed with caution.
eGRID2006s year 2004 data have been reconfigured to reflect the industrys current structure as was known by October 1, 2006, including plant ownership and operators, parent company affiliations, company mergers, and grid configurations.
Although eGRID is based on more than existing Federal data sources, its development required substantial attention to quality control. Accurate matching of entities from different databases required great care, even where identification codes were available. Inconsistencies between data sources, missing data, and ambiguous data necessitated adjustments to values of individual data elements, especially identification data. In general, however, questionable data have not been altered, except with regard to the relationship of plants to the power grid.
The 12 eGRID2006 files are: ! EGRDBLR (boiler), with 4,787 year 2004 records; ! EGRDGEN (generator), with 16,056 year 2004 records; ! EGRDPLNT (plant), with 4,841 year 2004 records with non-zero generation and/or heat input; ! EGRDST (State), with 51 year 2004 records; ! EGRDEGCL and EGRDEGCO (electric generating company), with 1,634 year 2004 records for the location (operator)-based file and 1,869 year 2004 records for the owner-based file, respectively; ! EGRDPRL and EGRDPRO (parent company), with 103 year 2004 records in the location (operator)-based file and 108 year 2004 records in the owner-based file, respectively; ! EGRDPCAL (power control area), with 112 year 2004 records in the location (operator)-based file; ! EGRDSRL (eGRID subregion), with 26 eGRID subregion year 2004 records in the location (operator)-based file; ! EGRDNRCL (NERC region), with 10 NERC region year 2004 records in the location (operator)based file; and ! EGRDUS, with 1 year 2004 U.S. totals record.
The number of variables in each of the 12 aggregation files varies, with 34 in EGRDBLR, 15 in EGRDGEN, 131 in EGRDPLNT, 92 in EGRDST, 94 in EGRDEGCL and EGRDEGCO, 92 in EGRDPRL and EGRDPRO, 92 in EGRDPCAL, 93 in EGRDSRL, 92 in EGRDNRCL, and 90 in EGRDUS.
The first variable in each file is a unique sequence number for that file. The boiler file is sorted by State postal code abbreviation, plant name, plant code, and boiler ID. The generator file is sorted by State postal code abbreviation, plant name, plant code, and generator ID. The plant file is sorted by State postal code abbreviation, plant name, and plant code. The State file is sorted by State postal code abbreviation. The two electric generating company files are sorted by electric generating company name, the two parent company files are sorted by parent company name, the power control area file is sorted by power control area name, the eGRID subregion file is sorted by eGRID subregion name, and the NERC region file is sorted by NERC region acronym.
The file structure for the files is included in Appendix A. The file structure also includes a description of the variables and the original data sources.
Next GeoPlan imported the eGRID2006 Version 2.1 - EGRDPLNT excel workbook sheet into ArcMap.
The EGRDPLNT excel workbook sheet contains electricity generation plants, with 4,841 year 2004 records with non-zero generation and/or heat input for the entire country.
The EGRDPLNT excel workbook sheet was then exported from ArcMap as a Database table.
Next the newly created EGRDPLNT.DBF was spatially mapped using the LAT and LONG fields containing decimal degrees to 4 decimal places spatial information.
Next the newly created EGRDPLNT.SHP's projection was defined as GCS_WGS_1984, and then it was reprojected to the FGDL Albers NAD 83 HARN projection.
Next a selection was performed on the State FIPS ID field where as it was equal to 12 (i.e. the State of Florida).
Next the selection was exported to a new shapefile called EPAEGRID_OCT06.SHP
Next all of the field information was Upper Cased, fields containing no information were deleted, and three fields were added; - DESCRIPT based on PNAME. - FGDLAQDATE based on the date the data was downloaded from the Source. - AUTOID Based on FID + 1, FGDL internal feature identification number.