Learn More About Your Energy Bill

PJM is a powerful private corporation run by a board that includes the utilities they regulate. They’re responsible for operating the electrical grid for 65 million people across all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. 

PJM controls how power is produced, transmitted to utility companies, and distributed to homes and businesses in those states. It’s also PJM’s job to improve economic efficiency and reliability, and to provide their service without discrimination. PJM is overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Every year, PJM holds an auction meant to ensure it has enough capacity to meet predicted energy demand three years in the future. These auctions are designed to favor fossil fuel companies in large part because PJM’s board includes people with ties to the fossil fuel industry. This approach keeps prices artificially inflated, ultimately hurting all consumers.

PJM’s July 2024 capacity auction saw its cost for ensuring reliability shoot up from $2.2 billion in 2023 to $14.7 billion. These record-breaking prices are an 800% increase over the prior year, hitting middle- and low-income families the hardest and highlighting the urgent need for reform.

Your bill is rising because PJM and large fossil fuel companies and utilities have rigged the system for their own benefit at your expense. 

They have primarily done this in two ways:

• They have promoted over-reliance on methane (“natural”) gas to power our electrical grid. This is in spite of the fact that gas is unreliable in extreme weather and prone to global market fluctuations that cause huge jumps in the price, which get passed on to you as higher monthly bills.

• They have created a backlog in connecting clean energy projects to the grid. As many as 95% of renewable energy projects like wind, solar, and battery storage—thousands of resources—are ready to go but aren’t being tapped as energy sources because of PJM’s delays. The scope of this problem is huge and unacceptable: As of early 2025, PJM’s queue connection wait time is 5+ years, and the queue is frozen to new applicants until 2026. This puts PJM far behind the rest of the U.S. in utilizing renewable energy sources.

Yes, they can. So far, they have chosen not to.

PJM should take three actions:

• Reform the interconnection queue by improving the way clean energy resources are approved and connected to the grid. 

• Build out transmission lines connecting renewable projects to the grid faster.

• Revise market rules so that any renewable energy resources that are connected to the grid count as new capacity. The current system leads to renewables not being counted correctly in capacity auctions, resulting in inflated costs for us.

Raise your voice! The only way PJM will change their ways is through public pressure. Join the fight to get more information on how to get involved in your state.