2 weeks Ago By By PATRICK CLOONAN [email protected]
Gov. Josh Shapiro announced Tuesday that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved his settlement with PJM Interconnection, resolving a lawsuit against PJM’s price hikes. Shapiro said the action will save consumers over $21 billion over the next two years.
Left unaddressed, he said, PJM’s next capacity auction scheduled for July 2025 could have tripled energy costs for 65 million people across a region extending from the Jersey Shore to Chicago. In December 2024, the governor filed a complaint with FERC against PJM, criticizing flaws in PJM’s capacity auction. Shapiro said he worked with PJM to reach an agreement in January to significantly lower the capacity auction price cap by 35%.
“My Administration worked with FERC and PJM to find a path forward that will save Pennsylvanians billions of dollars on their electricity bills,” the governor said. Shapiro said a diverse coalition came together support his message, including four governors, energy and consumer advocates, and the Organization of PJM States. PJM serves Pennsylvania as well as all or part of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, or PennFuture, joined Shapiro’s challenge to PJM, hailed the governor’s announcement earlier this year — and urged more action regarding PJM. “Our region’s grid operator is failing to effectively run their ‘capacity market,’ and complacent elected officials would allow the fossil-fuel industry to exploit the failure to reap massive, unjust profits by pretending to add ‘reliability,’” President and CEO Patrick McDonnell said at the time. On the other hand the Commonwealth Foundation, an organization that favors free market solutions to economic problems, pointed to what PJM and energy industry analysts said, that soaring demand for electricity is happening at the same time power plants are being retired, reducing supply.
The governor’s action also was questioned by state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, who said Shapiro’s continued insistence on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative could lead to unnecessary increases in electric bills. “Over 13 months ago the Commonwealth Court ruled the RGGI Electricity Tax violates our state Constitution,” Pittman said late in December. “Yet Gov.
Shapiro refuses to accept the decision and continues to waste more taxpayer dollars appealing the decision to the (state) Supreme Court.”.
