New Jersey customers will pay over $20 more per month on electricity bills as power grid demand jumps
Many New Jersey residents will see their electric bills rise by over $20 a month this summer after the price of energy went sky-high at two recent auctions.
The state's Board of Public Utilities (BPU) broke down the increase for the average customer of different local electric utilities, based on an estimated usage of about 650 kilowatt hours (kWh) a month. Here's how much the average monthly bills are estimated to increase:
- The average Atlantic City Electric customer's bill would increase by $28, or 17%.
- The average JCP&L customer's bill would increase by over $22, or 20%.
- For PSE&G, the average bill will spike over $26, or 17%.
- For RECO, the average bill would rise over $25, or 18%.
The BPU announced the increases Wednesday after holding its basic generation service auction following a similar auction from grid operator PJM Interconnection, which serves 13 states including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.
In July, PJM held a capacity auction, where it secured electricity supply for the 2025-26 generating year. Based on past data and trends, the grid operator will forecast how much electricity is needed for the year and accept bids from power suppliers who can provide the amounts of electricity needed.
At that auction, the capacity price for electricity was nine times higher, according to Advanced Energy United, a renewable energy advocacy group. That price is part of the costs of energy that then get factored into customers' bills, along with other costs like transmission and distribution services.
BPU President Christine Guhl-Sadovy addressed the increase in a meeting Wednesday.
"No one likes to see bill increases, so we understand that and are committed to doing everything we can at this department to ensure that we are keeping prices as low as possible," Guhl-Sadovy said.
"We have an increase in demand, we have a tightening of supply, in part because of some interconnection delays. So we would like to see those projects that are waiting to interconnect get online and help provide additional generation capacity, particularly clean capacity, and a lot of that queue is made up of clean capacity," she added.
PJM has said demand will continue increasing due to the increasing prevalence of server farms and data centers, which require high amounts of electricity for everything from cloud computing and storage to artificial intelligence. The grid notably covers Loudoun County, Virginia, the "data center capital of the world."
Electrical grid faces political pressure to connect more power suppliers
PJM has faced pressure from multiple state governors to get more power suppliers connected to the grid, which would help limit price increases fueled by the high demand and limited supply. There is a backlog of proposed power generation projects that are still in the "interconnection queue," waiting to pass the review processes and then be built and connected to the grid.
According to PJM there are some projects that have passed out of the queue but have not been built "due to external challenges, including financing, supply chain and siting/permitting issues."
On Tuesday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a proposal from PJM that the organization says will help get more suppliers online. However, it has faced criticism from clean energy groups who say the process will favor the construction of new gas-fired power plants.
Those same groups blame PJM for taking too long to study proposed wind and solar projects that are still in the queue. More than 97% of the outstanding proposals in the queue are solar, wind or battery storage projects, with less than 3% being natural gas, according to the Associated Press.
Get help paying your electric bill in New Jersey
If you can't afford your electric bill as a New Jersey resident, you might qualify for programs that can help avoid your service getting shut off. You can find more information on utility assistance programs under the "customer assistance" tab on the Board of Public Utilities' website, NJ.gov/BPU, or just click that link.
There are also "Energy Assistance Day" events where representatives from utility companies and community groups will help you identify which programs you might qualify for and help you apply.
The next event is being held in Toms River, New Jersey, on Feb. 19 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Ocean County Library.
