The energy evolution cannot leave consumers behind

By Maddie Milam

This is a lightly edited excerpt of testimony provided to the Pennsylvania House’s Policy Committee.

For the millions living across the PJM region, energy affordability and reliability aren’t political talking points – they determine whether homes stay warm, schools stay open, and local economies keep running. 

Across the Mid-Atlantic, electricity prices are climbing, dispatchable generation is retiring faster than replacements can be built, and our grid is increasingly strained by policy uncertainty, permitting delays, and rising demand from AI, data centers, and electrification.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has repeatedly warned that policy decisions prematurely retiring functioning power plants are hurting reliability. Meanwhile, PJM’s own analysis shows that more than 30 gigawatts of firm generation — enough to power 25 million homes — is planned for mothballing by 2030, even as peak demand keeps rising. 

In recent PJM capacity auctions, prices have spiked tenfold, adding well over $10 billion in costs to consumers without proportional new supply. The result is a grid operating under elevated risk, a product of policy failure and public policy choices that have made it increasingly difficult to build the generation we need. 

The shortage of generation in PJM is a little bit like an infection in PJM states where policies halt or delay projects through moratoria, permitting delays, and arbitrary bans. When states prohibit natural gas infrastructure, prematurely retire nuclear plants that provide carbon-free baseload power, or subject renewables to years-long reviews, they constrain supply, drive up costs, and shift reliability risks onto neighboring states. 

The result is a patchwork of incompatible state mandates that distort regional markets and undermine the very reliability those markets were designed to ensure.

The result? Those least able to absorb the higher costs get hit the hardest – seniors, families on fixed incomes, and rural households. The cost of a power outage isn’t theoretical. For families, it’s spoiled food, unsafe homes, and missed paychecks. For businesses, it’s downtime and lost revenue.

Fortunately, there’s a growing recognition that energy planning must reflect the realities of place and need. For too long, restrictive energy policies have made a common-sense approach uncommon.

All parties — states, PJM, and stakeholders — must consider reasonable, appropriate ways to get generation built to meet system challenges and serve customers. 

Oversight by state regulators remains central, but PJM processes must be flexible enough to accommodate different procurement options and outcomes without adverse effects on consumers. States cannot demand reliability while denying the generation necessary to provide it, all in the name of hitting an arbitrary year to get X amount of power from carbon-free sources.

Energy affordability and economic competitiveness go hand-in hand. The Mid-Atlantic has lost ground in GDP and job growth compared to the rest of the country, due in part to structural energy cost disadvantages created by restrictive state policies.

This is about energy realism — grounding our decisions in what actually works for families, farmers, and small businesses who depend on affordable, reliable power to thrive.

The energy evolution cannot leave consumers behind. As we integrate new technologies to respond to projected growth, states that manage this growth with reliable, affordable supply will attract jobs, investment, and innovation.

Restoring energy affordability and reliability in the Mid-Atlantic isn’t about returning to the past — it’s about creating the conditions that create growth, investment, and energy security moving forward. 

Read the full testimony here.

Maddie Milam is the Midwest Executive Director at Consumer Energy Alliance. 

_{*The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of EnergyPlatform.News.}