PJM’s Failure to Plan Sparks Pushback as Electric Bills Set to Jump 20%

Audubon, PA - As a response to rising energy bills due to PJM’s poor planning and affinity for dirty, pricey fossil fuels, communities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware are rallying and voicing their discontent to the nation’s largest regional transmission organization. 

Sierra Club members and volunteers rallied outside of PJM’s office, protesting the upcoming price hike. Prices across PJM’s service region will increase by up to 20 percent over the next two years, starting June 1st. 

PJM tried to shift the blame onto environmental groups, falsely stating that retiring old, inefficient, expensive, deadly coal plants is the cause of the price hike. In reality, PJM has had years to plan for the older coal and oil plant retirements with the Sierra Club’s support and assistance. Despite needing new connections for over two years, there are nearly 223 GW of projects—85 percent of which are clean energy projects—still waiting in PJM’s interconnection queue. Rather than adding these clean energy projects to the grid to address energy demands, PJM allowed gas projects to cut the line. 

In response, Sierra Club New Jersey Chapter Director Anjuli Ramos-Busot issued the following statement:

“Despite what PJM would like everyone to believe, it is not us, environmental groups, nor the states’ efforts to have more clean energy generation at fault for PJM's inability to effectively interconnect its backlog of proposed energy generation projects. It's 2025 and PJM needs to come to the present, accept where the energy generation market is and wants to go, and adapt its policies and procedures to reflect the needs of the states they serve. Enough with forcing us to keep online old, inefficient and expensive coal-fired power plants that want and need to retire. PJM needs massive interconnection queue reform and effective transmission planning now, and to stop wasting time pointing fingers while ratepayers suffer for their inaction.”

Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter Clean Energy Program Advocate Nate Reagle added: 

“PJM, not the environmental groups, is in control of the broken queue that is preventing new renewable energy projects from being added to the grid. These clean energy projects that have been held up could drastically reduce the price impacts we will now be seeing. The same projects can also be brought online much faster than traditional coal and gas plants.”

Sierra Club Delaware Chapter Director Dustyn Thompson added:

“When you have a backlog of projects so severe that you have to shut down the connection process for years, and Federal Regulators have to pass multiple orders to get needed reforms to actually take place, the problem is clearly not advocacy groups. It is past time for PJM to accept its role in the energy crisis we are facing, stop promoting fossil fuels at the expense of more rapidly developed clean energy, and finish implementing these much-needed reforms demanded by FERC.”

Sierra Club Maryland Chapter Director Josh Tulkin added: 

“There are dozens of solar and storage projects proposed for Maryland that have been waiting in the PJM queue for years. If PJM wants to identify the cause of its supply problems, it needs only look in the mirror.”

Sierra Club West Virginia Chapter Director Honey May added: 

“While our colleagues in other states are calling out PJM for their fossil fuel favoritism and refusal to move forward with much-needed clean energy projects, we are here in West Virginia rallying against utility rate hikes that are happening precisely because they won’t move beyond old, inefficient, and expensive coal plants.”