Utility customers are facing a dramatic uptick in the price of electricity that Democratic lawmakers blame on the state’s grid operator. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
While utility consumers grapple with skyrocketing costs, lawmakers say they are looking for ways to keep electricity affordable and demand accountability from power companies.
Led by Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Somerset), a group of bipartisan lawmakers announced a package of six bills intended to modernize New Jersey’s electric grid and keep rates stable. The state has previously relied on utility companies to upgrade the grid, but things haven’t moved fast enough — leaving it to the Legislature to act, Zwicker told reporters Thursday at the Statehouse in Trenton.
“Our transmission lines, as I’m sure some of you have heard, are unprepared to deal with the skyrocketing demand for energy. New innovations, such as electric cars, appliances, AI-based technology, all require massive amounts of electricity,” Zwicker said. “We are right now plugging 21st-century technology into a 20th-century energy grid, and the problems continue to mount.”
Democrats have blamed PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization that oversees and controls the electric grid for 12 states, including New Jersey, for the spike in electric bills seen starting this month. They have called for an investigation of the company’s capacity market auction, a price-setting auction that saw a nearly tenfold increase over the previous sale last July.
“If you’re hearing, as you drive through New Jersey, blood-curdling screams, they’re real, and they’re from the citizens of the state,” said Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex). “People are going to be unbelievably angry, and they should be unbelievably angry.”
Some of the bills in the package announced Thursday would:
Require artificial intelligence data centers and crypto mining facilities to submit an energy plan to the Board of Public Utilities and mandate certain renewable energy for AI and crypto newly coming to New Jersey.
Establish a program to “facilitate the development of energy-related projects.”
Create a new incentive program to redevelop decommissioned power plant sites into fusion energy hubs.
Lawmakers said three other bills would be filed Thursday.
Smith stressed that New Jersey has to work in conjunction with the 13 states and the District of Columbia that PJM also oversees. Even if New Jersey rejected data center plans here, he noted, they could still be built in places like Virginia using the same electric grid New Jersey relies on.
He suggested that without major reforms at PJM, New Jersey should considering working with another regional transmission organization. These organizations are supposed to keep power costs as low as possible, “and clearly, that’s not working with PJM anymore,” Smith added.
Smith said New Jersey could absolutely remain with PJM, but “they know they have a problem.”
“It’s unfair, inherently unfair to everybody out there in New Jersey. So I think putting that out there — let’s investigate,” he said. “Could we have a better deal someplace else? Should we do it ourselves? It’s smart for New Jersey to do it.”
New Jersey Republicans have blamed Democrats and Gov. Phil Murphy’s energy policies for the price hike, criticizing Murphy’s focus on offshore wind projects that have yet to materialize and have been blocked by the Trump administration.
Sen. John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester) said New Jersey is “being held hostage,” echoing other Democrats who have claimed PJM is keeping prices high by refusing to connect various renewable energy sources to its grid.
“Bottom line is very simple — Legislature has to concentrate on what we can do and be effective. Modernizing the grid is real. It should happen,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to tell the utilities to do it. We should not have to direct the BPU to do it.”
PJM has previously blamed the current price spike on a divergence between supply and demand.
“These higher prices are the result of a loss in electricity supply caused primarily by decarbonization policies that have led to an uptick in generator retirements, coupled with an unprecedented spike in electricity demand due largely to the advancement of data centers to power artificial intelligence, the electrification of vehicles and heating systems, and the onshoring of U.S. manufacturing,” Dan Lockwood, a spokesperson for PJM, told the New Jersey Monitor earlier this month.
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