HARRISBURG – Sen. Gene Yaw (R-23) today issued the following statement:
“Yesterday’s announcement by Gov. Josh Shapiro on PJM’s most recent auction results may sound impressive, but it fails to address the real crisis facing Pennsylvania ratepayers. The narrative that this settlement ‘saved’ consumers billions is misleading. What it did was temporarily cap prices in a system that’s failing because of a fundamental lack of reliable energy supply.
“PJM doesn’t generate electricity. It doesn’t own power plants or transmission lines. PJM takes electricity generated by over 1400 generation sources, including wind and solar, and directs that electricity to the right place at the right time and in the correct amount. It’s a traffic controller for the grid, not the driver of energy costs. The real reason electricity prices are rising is because we’re not producing enough of it. Over the past decade, aggressive renewable mandates have forced the premature retirement of dependable baseload generation without replacing it with sufficient new baseload generation capacity. That’s not PJM’s fault. That’s a policy failure.
“Currently, 67,000 MW of renewable energy projects have been through the PJM approval process but are sitting undeveloped on the sidelines. Why? The answer is simple. Intermittent and limited duration electricity is not what is demanded to serve people’s needs and operate a full-time economy. Without new dispatchable generation, ratepayers will continue to face uncertainty and higher costs. Regulatory reshuffling won’t fix this. We need to build, not blame.
“Making PJM the boogeyman is good short-term politics. Artificially and temporarily capping electric rates stifles new generation and sends the message: don’t build in the PJM grid. That is disastrous for Pennsylvanians in the long term. As I’ve said before, if Pennsylvania is serious about protecting consumers, we must stop pointing fingers and start investing in real solutions.”
CONTACT:
Elizabeth Weitzel
717-787-3280