RPA on New Jersey’s Electricity Rate Emergency

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The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

Allen Hall, Rosemary Barnes, Joel Saxum & Phil Totaro

299 episodes

2 days ago

Uptime is a renewable energy podcast focused on wind energy and energy storage technologies. Experts Allen Hall, Rosemary Barnes, Joel Saxum, and Phil Totaro break down the latest research, tech, and policy.

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RPA on New Jersey’s Electricity Rate Emergency

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

29 minutes 9 seconds

4 days ago

RPA on New Jersey’s Electricity Rate Emergency

Kyle Mason (Associate Planner) and Robert Freudenberg (VP, Energy & Environment Program) from the Regional Plan Association break down why New Jersey electricity rates spiked 17-20% in June 2024. They explore how outdated grid infrastructure, AI-driven energy demand, and stalled renewable projects are creating a perfect storm for ratepayers.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress Powering tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Kyle and Rob, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having us.

Robert Freudenberg: Yeah, thanks. Great to be here.

Allen Hall: Uh, so I was doing a lot of homework online a couple of days ago and looking into, uh, some statements with an administration about the electricity rates in New Jersey, and I thought, well, I need, I need to do my homework because some of this is new to me and throughout all my research and spent several hours on it.

Your organization is the only one that had any real data. So I'm glad you're joining us today. So, Kyle, I would like to start with you first, and, and. There's a fundamental challenge that's happening, uh, in New Jersey. Can you just paint a picture of what around New Jersey rate payers are facing with their electricity bills?

Kyle Mason: Yeah, absolutely. So starting [00:01:00] June of this year, uh, electricity rates in New Jersey went up between 17 to 20%, depending on your utility company. Uh, that is a cause of a larger problem with the regional grid operator. PJM. Uh, PJM is the grid operator for New Jersey and 12 other states. It covers over 60 million people in a wide geographic area.

Uh, they run a annual capacity auction, which secures power for when the grid is at peak load or when most power is being used on the grid. And that capacity market saw record high prices, which trickled down to. Increased electricity rates for New Jersey rate payers.

Allen Hall: Rob, from a policy perspective, how did we get here?

Robert Freudenberg: Yeah, I mean, there are, there are so many ways we got here and that's part of the issue. Um, you know, I think what we've seen in, in the aftermath [00:02:00] of these rate hikes is everybody trying to point to one thing. Uh, and there is no one thing here. This is, this is a series of changes over time. Um, you know, we're.