By Tom Kleckner

American Electric Power on Tuesday said it is revising its 2030 targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, increasing them to 70% from 60% over 2000 levels.

AEP also said it believes it can cut CO2 emissions by more than 80% by 2050 from its 2000 levels. The company already has cut its emissions by 59% since 2000, a pace it said was faster than expected.

“We’ve made significant progress in reducing carbon dioxide emissions from our power generation fleet and expect our emissions to continue to decline,” AEP CEO Nick Akins said in a press release, adding that the company’s aspirational goal is zero emissions by 2050.

AEP has achieved many of the reductions so far by shutting down inefficient, out-of-market coal plants. Coal-fired generation accounts for 45% of its capacity today, down from 70% in 2005. Natural gas capacity has increased from 19% to 28% and renewable capacity from 4% to 17% during that time.

“Technological advances, including energy storage, will determine how quickly we can achieve zero emissions while continuing to provide reliable, affordable power for customers,” he said.

The Columbus, Ohio-based company, which has operations in 11 states, said it will invest in renewable generation and transmission and distribution technologies that increase efficiency and expand demand-response and energy-efficiency programs to increase CO2 reductions.

AEP’s resource plans include adding more than 8.6 GW of new wind and solar generation to serve the company’s regulated utility customers by 2030. The company is currently seeking regulatory approval to add 1.5 GW of new wind generation to serve customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

AEP Ohio has a case pending before the state’s public utility commission to have customers finance the building of a 400-MW solar farm, the largest in the state, in southeast Ohio.

The company could also benefit from provisions in the state’s House Bill 6, which will raise and distribute $20 million annually from 2021 through 2027 to help finance six utility-scale solar farms previously approved by the Ohio Power Siting Board.

Akins said last October that the company would focus on smaller renewable projects after Texas regulators rejected its proposed $4.5 billion Wind Catcher project. Wind Catcher would have included a 2-GW wind farm in the Oklahoma Panhandle that would have supplied customers in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. (See AEP to Focus on Smaller Renewable Projects.)

Since then, AEP paid nearly $1.1 billion for Sempra Energy’s renewable business and folded it into its own portfolio. (See AEP Buys Sempra’s Renewables Portfolio in $1.1B Deal.)

The company plans to invest another $2.2 billion in contracted renewables and renewables integrated with energy storage in competitive markets between 2019 and 2023. AEP has added 1,302 MW of contracted renewable energy to its portfolio this year.

Over the long term, AEP plans to invest approximately $25 billion over the next five years to improve efficiency and resilience in its transmission and distribution systems.

AEP said it has factored future carbon regulations into the company’s evaluation of generation resource options and will continue to do so.

John Funk contributed to this article.