Greenhouse Gas Reporting in the Electric Utilities Sector
While many chemical releases are reported to the TRI, the TRI Program does not cover all chemicals released by industry. Notably, most greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are not reported to the TRI. Greenhouse gas emissions increase the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere, which alter the amount of heat trapped by the Earth's atmosphere and contribute to climate change. These elevated concentrations and their effect on climate are reasonably anticipated to endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations.
EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) tracks facility-level emissions from the largest U.S. sources of GHGs. Under the GHGRP, the Power Plants Sector consists predominantly of facilities that produce electricity by combusting fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, or biomass. The sector also includes facilities that produce steam, heated air, or cooled air by combusting fuels. The chart below shows GHG emissions reported to the GHGRP by facilities in the Power Plants sector from 2011 to 2020.
Different GHGs can have different effects on the Earth’s warming; Global Warming Potential values allow for comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases. MTCO2e is a weighted measurement that considers the tonnes of the gases and their associated global warming potentials.
- Note that while TRI typically collects chemical release data in units of pounds, the GHGRP collects GHG emissions expressed in quantities expressed as metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (MTCO2e). This chart shows GHG emissions in MTCO2e.
- Total reported emissions from the sector were 1,494.9 million MTCO2e in 2020, which represented nearly 58% of total direct emissions reported to the GHGRP.
- From 2011 to 2020, GHG emissions from this sector have decreased by 33%. According to data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, increased utilization of renewables such as wind and solar and a corresponding decrease in the use of coal from 2011 to 2020 continues to contribute to decreased emissions from this sector across the time series.
- Although 408 facilities in this sector reported to TRI, 1,339 facilities in the Power Plants Sector submitted GHG reports in 2020. Some facilities report to only one of these programs due to different applicability requirements. In particular, TRI covers only electric utilities that combust fuel or oil to generate electricity (i.e., natural gas power plants are not covered by TRI) while the GHGRP covers all power plants that meet the applicability requirements, including natural gas-fueled power plants.
Additional Resources
- To view and explore the data reported to EPA on GHG emissions, see the Facility Level Information on GreenHouse gases Tool (FLIGHT).
- EPA’s Understanding Global Warming Potentials webpage provides further information on GWPs, how they are used, and how they different by GHG.
- For more details on the electric utility sector’s GHG emissions, visit GHGRP Power Plants.
This page was published in March 2022 and uses the 2020 TRI National Analysis dataset made public in TRI Explorer in October 2021.