Contact: Lesley Paredes, lesley.paredes-hernandez@sierraclub.org.
Baltimore, MD - Earlier this week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a two-year extension for the Brandon Shores and Wagner power plants’ reliability must-run agreements (RMRs). This extension will allow the plants to continue operating years past their original retirement dates. The extension means that the Brandon Shores plant will operate 11 years beyond Talen’s first announcement that the plant would stop burning coal.
This decision demonstrates the need for PJM, the regional grid operator, to swiftly improve its generator retirement and transmission planning processes. RMRs are not only costly for ratepayers, but they also enable outdated fossil fuel plants to continue emitting harmful greenhouse gas emissions into our atmosphere.
Increasingly old and expensive fossil fuel power plants will continue to retire. The need for energy reliability will only increase as new technologies like data centers continue to grow, and extreme weather events call for more energy use. Deploying clean renewable energy and storage capacity is the most cost-effective way to meet these challenges. PJM should never allow a repeat of what’s happened with these two power plants.
In response to this recent development, the Maryland Sierra Club has released the following statement:
“Unless our regional grid operator takes more proactive steps for better planning, our state will continue to rely on costly fossil fuel plants to ensure grid reliability,” said Josh Tulkin, Maryland Sierra Club Chapter Director. “The need to extend the RMRs is a setback for ratepayers, our health, and our environment. This can be avoided through better planning for power plant retirements and by allowing lower-cost, clean energy projects, like battery storage, to connect to the grid. As energy demands continue to rise, clean energy technologies like battery storage deploy quickly, help address peak load demands, and complement the development of clean energy resources, like solar and wind power. We strongly urge our regional grid operator PJM to engage in better advance planning for fossil fuel plant retirements.”
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