PJM Stakeholders Rewrite Their Own Penalties to Bail Out Gas
VALLEY FORGE, PA – During Winter Storm Elliott, gas generators failed to deliver electricity at a nearly disastrous scale and were met with nearly $1.8 billion in penalties as a result. In a meeting today, members of PJM Interconnection voted to go easier on power plants that fail to deliver as promised during emergencies. In a tight vote, PJM members approved a proposal that will reduce the penalties for failing to meet commitments by up to 90% for next winter.
Following is a response from Tom Rutigliano, Senior Advocate at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):
“This is a public bailout of bad private investments that punishes power plant owners who did the right thing and invested in reliability and rewards the ones who made promises they didn’t plan to keep. The public has paid tens of billions of dollars to power plant owners for the promise of reliable service.
Last winter, we found out that many of them, mostly natural gas owners, failed to prepare to deliver the power they were getting paid for. Today, those same owners have voted to let themselves off the hook if they fail again in the coming winter.”
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law, and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health, and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd). Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.