A Letter to the Editor from
Jim Kotcon, Chair
WV Chapter of Sierra Club
Thank you for David Beard’s article regarding the Dec. 9 testimony from PJM to the WV Legislature regarding the reliability of our electric grid. It is certainly true that rising electricity demands, especially from large “data centers,” combined with closing existing electric generating plants creates concern about the reliability of our electric grid.
But PJM failed to disclose some underlying fundamentals driving the crisis. PJM is a regional transmission organization that controls interconnection of new generating facilities to the grid. Currently, PJM has a huge backlog of requests from new renewable energy projects waiting to connect, more than enough new projects to offset the planned closures and still meet increased demand.
To make matters worse, PJM biases their selection by allowing large gas and nuclear generating projects to “jump the line” for approval, even though such plants may take years or decades before they can supply electricity to the grid.
PJM further biases the market by requiring some old plants to keep running, but not including those plants in their capacity markets, thereby creating an artificial shortage that drives up costs for every one. That adds an extra $5 billion in costs to consumers over the next three years. This unfair, anti-consumer system is one reason why the Sierra Club and many other organizations filed a lawsuit earlier this year challenging PJM.
We should be adopting the cheapest, cleanest, fastest and safest energy sources first. If PJM had a fair system, everyone’s electric bill would be lower, the grid would be more reliable, and our environment would be cleaner. Urge our WV Legislators to hear both sides of this story, or we may all pay for it in future electric bills and future health care impacts.