By Richard L. Gaw
Staff Writer

Throughout the Industrial Revolution and beyond, Pennsylvania became one of the bedrocks of commerce in the U.S. - from agriculture to technology to manufacturing. 

In the process, it also became one of our nation’s unhealthiest states – with some of that cost of neglect now passed onto the state’s residents - but a meeting held this week unveiled that the problem can be fixable through a series of initiatives and grant programs.  

In a climate forum held by State Rep. Christina Sappey at the Kennett Township Building on April 14, three Pennsylvania environmental experts shared their insights on the issue of energy mismanagement, and the ways the Commonwealth is attempting to move forward with a new grant program and six bills that if passed, will fully aim to reduce carbon emissions in the state.

“Obviously, our electric rates are going up,” Sappey said at the start of the meeting. “We’re seeing that in our bills over the past years, and we’re about to get another big increase this summer, and the explanation for most of us is pretty murky. All we’re seeing are huge poles going up on most of the roads we travel. It has become very clear that a lot of us don’t understand where our electricity and our energy is coming from. 

“We don’t have a strong understanding of why it costs so much and why our bills are going up, and we don’t have a strong understanding between those things and climate change.”

Ineffective energy management leading to higher bills

Robert Routh, the policy director for Pennsylvania Climate and Energy with the National Resources Defense Council, discussed the errors being made by the Valley Forge-based PJM, a regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of 13 states, including Pennsylvania.

“PJM has an effect on everything,” Routh began. “[It affects] the electric bill you’re paying. It affects our ability to get clean energy and any new generating resources on the grid. It affects the speed at which our ongoing energy transition takes place. It affects transmission lines and where they go and who pays for them and therefore, it affects our ability to keep the lights on.”

Routh said that PJM has tremendous power to influence energy policies in the region, and as a result, places them at odds with the energy goals of the states within its grid. To complicate matters of energy efficiency, Routh said that PJM is not currently allowing new power plants to request connection to its interconnection grid. Meanwhile in recent years, widespread gas fire plants in PJM’s grid were failing in large numbers and gas leaks at these plants were leading to severe blackouts, and in 2020, PJM’s interconnection queue stopped working. 

To exacerbate the capacity shortage, PJM did not account for these failures in its grids, giving off the false sense of abundant energy as it approached its capacity auction in July of 2024.

If PJM were to have permitted new energy sources to join its grid, it “could significantly improve reliability and affordability,” said Routh, who added that the resulting rate hike passed on to consumers was “preventable and foreseeable.”

In advance of PJM’s next capacity auction scheduled for this July – one that could result in over $20 billion in unnecessary energy costs for 13 million Pennsylvanians and 65 million consumers who live on the grid – Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) against PJM last December, criticizing flaws in the energy provider’s capacity auction design that threaten to impose significant new price increases.

“[Shapiro told FERC] that this market was broken, and that [PJM] is not incentivizing new energy supplies to come online in a timely manner,” Routh said. “As a result, Pennsylvanians are being hit by astronomically high prices and receiving no commensurate public benefits, whatsoever.”

On Jan. 28, 2025, Shapiro announced that he reached an agreement with PJM that resolved his recent lawsuit and will save consumers over $21 billion in energy costs over the next two years. Shapiro worked with PJM to significantly lower the capacity auction price cap – from over $500/Megawatt-Day to $325/MW-Day – averting a runaway auction price that would have unnecessarily increased energy bills.

“This is a temporary solution to stop the bleeding, get the patient to the hospital and spend the next two years fixing PJM’s structural underlying problems with its capacity market design,” Routh said of the agreement. “[PJM is] feeling a lot of political pressure, and no grid regulator wants to see a blackout on their watch.”

RISE PA: $396 million in grants to reduce industrial emissions

The forum served to provide a connection between Pennsylvania’s distribution of energy with its commitment to improving its climate. Louie Krak, infrastructure implementation coordinator for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, discussed a new grant program at the DEP called RISE PA (Reducing Industrial Sector Emissions in Pennsylvania). It is a $396 million statewide industrial decarbonization grant program that aims to reduce greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions from the state by funding large-, medium- and small-scale projects at industrial facilities across the Commonwealth.

Eligible applicants for RISE PA grants include the following sectors: manufacturing, industrial, coal mining and natural gas and oil production and distribution. Grants will be awarded for projects related to energy efficiency, electrification, process emissions reduction, adding low-carbon fuels and on-site renewable energy such as solar and wind, and carbon capture utilization and storage. 

In addition to those awards, RISE PA will offer bonuses and incentive funding to companies who meet additional criteria. The Pa. DEP is now accepting applications for funding for medium- and large-scale projects through Aug. 29 and will begin accepting applications for small-scale projects in May.  

“It’s truly a transformational amount of funding to address climate change and it’s a huge investment in Pennsylvania’s industries,” Krak said. “RISE PA offers an opportunity for Pennsylvania businesses to get funding for projects that will directly reduce their electricity usage and enable them to generate their own power by helping to find onsite renewable energy projects, and it may enable some companies to put excess electricity back on the grid.

“I see this program as a very poetic opportunity for Pennsylvania,” Krak added. “Our commonwealth helped to power the Industrial Revolution, and that came at a great cost to our environment. Now we have been given the opportunity to lead the entire country in the Industrial Decarbonization movement.”

Lightning Plan

Flora Cardoni, the deputy director for Penn Environment, discussed a comprehensive energy initiative recently introduced by Gov. Shapiro called the Lightning Plan that aims to make energy more affordable and accessible, and includes key components such as the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Act (PACER), which sets caps on carbon emissions from power plants in the state. 

Other bills currently up for vote in the state legislature include the Pennsylvania Reliable Energy Sustainability Standard (PRESS); the Reliable Energy Siting and Electric Transition Regulation (RESET); the Pennsylvania Economic Development for a Growing Economy (EDGE); a community energy bill; and a bill designed to improve Act 129, that sets standards for energy efficiency and lowering costs. Rep. Sappey supports all of these bills.

The Lightning Plan builds on the energy plan unveiled by Shapiro in March of 2024, which is projected to create nearly 15,000 energy jobs, lower utility bills for households, address carbon pollution and potentially save Pennsylvania households $664 million by 2040 and generate $11.4 billion in clean, reliable energy investments. 

“We are facing a few crises at the same time - the problem with PJM both from overvaluing the reliability of gas plants and not approving new utilities renewable projects, meaning that all of our utility bills are rising,” Cardoni said. “At the same time, the climate crisis is threatening communities here in Chester County with floods and droughts. 

“The science is clear: that if we want to tackle air pollution and climate change and help keep our electricity bills low, it is critical that Pennsylvania move away from dirty polluting energy sources like coal and fracked gas, and toward a cleaner energy future with alternatives like wind and solar and investing in energy efficiency.”

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].