By Paige Britt, NJ State House News Service
New Jersey’s biggest utility told lawmakers that it has no control over electricity price increases that are set to sock households and businesses starting June 1.
The driver, according to Newark-based Public Service Enterprise Group, is PJM Interconnection, a wholesaler which supplies power to 13 states, including New Jersey. PJM is the largest North American regional electricity transmitter and operates wholesale auctions for local utilities that bid on electricity supplies drawn from the broader grid.
“The most recent PJM capacity auction results are the direct cause of this significant price increase coming for utility bills this year, and that cost is being driven by one main factor: a lack of generation supply to meet growing demand for electricity,” Rick Thigpen, senior vice president for Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., told Senate and Assembly lawmakers on a joint panel examining energy pricing in Trenton on April 25.
A PSEG subsidiary, PSE&G, supplies electricity to 2.4 million New Jersey customers.
Phil Vavala, regional president of Atlantic City Electric, with more than 500,000 customers in the southern part of the state, agreed that the issue is supply versus demand. The utility doesn’t set customers’ bill prices, he told lawmakers.
A spokesman for PJM, based in Audubon, Pa., said the core issue is New Jersey’s own energy policy.
“New Jersey has insufficient generation in-state, continues to shut down power plants, and now heavily relies on imports to meet its consumers’ needs,” spokesman Jeffrey Shields said in a statement. “A seven-year-long effort by New Jersey to add more generation via offshore wind did not come to fruition. When supply decreases and demand increases, the net result is higher consumer costs. Consumers deserve better than this exercise in finger-pointing and blame-shifting.”
Starting June 1, the average New Jersey ratepayer could see bills increase by more than $20 a month, according to Brian Lipman, director for the division of rate counsel within the New Jersey board of public utilities.
In a bid to alleviate stress on consumers, Governor Phil Murphy on April 22 signed a bill into law that requires utility companies that use smart meters to alert ratepayers if their natural gas or electricity use are spiking, so they can take immediate action to curb their consumption.
“At a time when New Jersey families and senior citizens are expecting to see their electric bills rise, we need to ensure that they have tools to help them better manage and control costs before it becomes more of a financial burden,” Senator Shirley Turner, a Democrat from Lawrenceville who sponsored the bill, said in a press release.
Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo, a Democrat from Hamilton who chairs the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee said, “We’re committed to exploring all options to ease energy costs for New Jersey families and businesses, and that includes taking a hard look at the role utilities play in rate increases.”
