May 28, 2025
By Castin Stone
*Consumers across the region are about to be hit with increases in electric bills of as much as $30 per month starting in June due to PJM Interconnection’s failure to bring more clean, affordable energy to the electric grid.
Headquartered outside Philadelphia, PJM is the company that manages the regional electric grid for 65 million people across all or part of 13 states, including Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. PJM’s dysfunctional rules and poor decision-making around generating enough power to meet demand play a big part in electricity prices going higher and higher.
Because of the company’s outdated interconnection approval process, there will be a shortage of energy generation in the future because of the company’s years-long delay in adding those new, clean energy sources. Of the 3,000 energy projects waiting to connect to our electrical grid, about 95% are wind, solar, energy storage, and other renewable projects. Even just a portion of these projects would produce enough energy to meet the rising demand for electricity.
That delay makes it harder to keep up with rising demand, mainly caused by the growth of new data centers for AI and other purposes. And that means higher electricity bills.
In fact, recent independent analysis conducted by Synapse Energy Economics estimates that PJM’s poor decisions and mismanagement, in particular its failure to approve new energy projects that have been waiting for review for years, will cause electric bills to spike almost 60% over the next 10 to 15 years if the company does not improve its management of the grid. The same report found that quicker connection of these new power sources would cut the average household’s energy bills by $505 per year and create 313,000 additional jobs each year across the region.
Under pressure to address higher demand, instead of fixing its broken approval process, PJM allowed 51 projects, mostly natural gas and nuclear, to jump ahead of the thousands in its queue that have been waiting years for approval. By doing so, PJM is discriminating against affordable clean energy that can be brought online more quickly, by choosing many projects that will not be complete for five years or more.
Right now, about 60% of Pennsylvania’s electricity is produced by burning fracked gas, which is more expensive and subject to volatile price swings, especially because more liquid natural gas (LNG) is being exported to China and other nations. Less than 5% comes from cheaper, home-grown clean energy sources like solar, wind, hydropower, and energy storage.
The shame of this situation is that this problem was totally preventable. PJM’s mismanagement has resulted in a system that’s rigged against consumers and for energy corporations.
*Thank you to Clear Point Communications for supporting content.