Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:
Public Service Electric & Gas has tentatively agreed to a sharply scaled-down plan to make its gas and power grids more resilient, accepting a $842 million, four-year program instead of a $2.5 billion, five-year spending program.
In a separate proposed agreement with stakeholders, the state’s largest utility also agreed to put off a decision on its $2.8 billion energy-efficiency filing until early 2020, one of the company’s biggest priorities. Instead, PSE&G will spend $42 million on existing programs aimed at cutting energy use by hospitals and multi-family housing, and installing smart thermostats.
Both agreements need to be finalized among stakeholders — the utility itself, staff of the Board of Public Utilities, and the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel. The proposed settlements could be up for approval by the BPU at its initial September meeting.
The accords reached with regulators signal worries among regulators about spikes in customers’ bills resulting from the Murphy administration’s clean-energy goals, and its efforts to decrease power outages may be starting to resonate even though those policies already enjoy wide backing from the public and government officials.
The tentative agreements come in the wake of the administration approving a controversial $300 million subsidy to keep open three power plants operated by PSEG Power, an affiliate of the utility, this past April. Last month, the BPU also approved ratepayer subsidies to build 1,100 megawatts of offshore-wind capacity off Atlantic City, a project expected to cost $1.68 billion.
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