Pennsylvania sits at the heart of the 13-state electric grid called PJM.
That means the state’s role in generating power to keep the lights on in neighboring states is crucial. But a report warns that recent government policy choices have weakened the grid, making it more vulnerable to disruptions.
A potential power shortage could hit by 2030 if more problems mount.
“It’s an issue in Washington and it’s an issue in various state capitals,” said Ken Zapinski, director of research and public policy at Pittsburgh Works Together, which published the report warning that the PJM grid is “in peril.”
PJM works as a middleman of sorts; it plans for the future and coordinates the marketplace where utilities and consumers buy electricity across 13 states and Washington, DC. States like Pennsylvania, Illinois and West Virginia generate more electricity than they use, which states like Ohio and Virginia buy up, keeping the lights on for 65 million people.
However, the growing demand for power, roadblocks to building more generation and transmission lines, and a lack of authority or responsibility for certain problems are causing frustrations.
“Regardless of where one stands on the energy mix issue, transmission will require lots of things being built,” Zapinski said. “And it’s really difficult and time consuming and expensive to build big things in this country.”
The result has been that, as coal power plants shut down, the power generation isn’t getting replaced quickly enough. Roadblocks from local zoning issues, state and federal regulations, and financial hangups after regulatory approval delay new sources of power.
“To keep the grid working, no matter what the future direction, requires building a lot of big things,” Zapinski said. “If Pennsylvania, somehow, is not producing the same amount of power for whatever reason, at the end of the day, there’s no clear model as to how that works.”
A June report from PJM warned that energy demands will increase significantly by 2040, and another “623 to 798 terawatt hours of annual electricity by 2040 to meet the resource gap” will be needed.
Supply scarcity is “nearly certain” unless fossil fuel retirements slow or more energy generation gets built faster.
But federal rules, like an EPA greenhouse gas regulation that would require coal plants to upgrade their equipment or shut down by 2032, are causing early retirements, Zapinski argued, at a time when PJM only approved 11 gigawatts of new projects in 2023.
State and federal rules, along with the priorities of power generators, utilities and businesses, means that some actions work against others.
“The real challenge is nobody’s in charge,” Zapinski said. “There’s a lot of different public and private sector players that are in charge of different aspects, and for things to work correctly everything has to be in alignment. If any of them fall out of alignment, things can fall to pieces very quickly.”
In February, a joint Pennsylvania-Ohio House and Senate Committee hearing took testimony on how bureaucracy shuts down power generators before new replacements are at hand and strains reliability. But one overriding fix isn’t easy to pass — no one group has the ultimate authority.
As intermittent power sources like wind and solar grow, and the footprint of coal and natural gas shrink, the risk of blackouts like what’s happened in Texas and California grows.
“That math isn’t good,” Zapinski said.
