By Bill Wolf in Wolfenotes
Why are NJ ratepayers paying billions of dollars and outrageous PJM “capacity charges”, when PJM is exporting power and maintaining HUGE and EXPENSIVE reserve margins?
Who will ask Gov. Sherrill those questions?
Virtually every news article and statement by public officials about rising electric energy costs – especially including NJ “energy emergency” Gov. Sherrill – emphasizes an alleged growing crisis due to increasing power demand (mostly from data centers) outstripping available supply (due to coal plant retirements).
They claim that this mismatch between growing demand and shrinking supply explains skyrocketing electricity prices and threatens “grid reliability”.
The regional grid operator, PJM, even threatens that rolling blackouts and brownouts are likely.
But PJM’s own data belie these claims.
It’s mostly exaggerations, spin, and falsehoods used to justify skyrocketing energy prices, PJM’s rigged market, and outrageous corporate profits, and to pressure governments to enact fossil and nuclear power-dominated “reliable” “base load” generation capacity and reduce the role of renewable energy options.
The so-called “growing data center demand” is an unreliable projection and an exaggeration.
Related: New Jersey’s soaring electricity rates may be rigged
Bill Wolfe is a former NJDEP official and a long-time environmental blogger
