FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Christina Nyquist | 603-930-8818 | cnyquist@epsa.org
Washington, D.C. – The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)’s inaction on the July 30, 2021 filing by PJM Interconnection proposing rule changes in the nation’s largest power market must be reversed said the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA) in a rehearing request filed today.
Todd Snitchler, president and CEO of EPSA, issued the following statement accompanying the rehearing request.
“Well-functioning competitive markets are essential to providing reliable and affordable electricity to Americans – and to enabling new solutions needed to advance the energy transition. PJM’s most recent capacity market auction, held under the expanded Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR) authorized in December 2019, resulted in record low costs while spurring the retirement of older, less efficient resources and the participation of new renewable and zero emission resources that are competitive without subsidies.
Changes to gut the existing MOPR are not only unnecessary at this time – they do nothing to enhance and in fact harm the effectiveness of PJM’s capacity market, which is critical for ensuring that enough power generation resources are on hand to provide reliable service. Instead, these rushed policy changes by PJM – at the FERC Chairman’s strong urging – kneecap competition, ignore investor interests, chill private investor ability to finance projects, and allow the exercise of market power to lead to unjust, unreasonable and unduly discriminatory rates.
EPSA’s rehearing request details the many specific legal flaws in and deleterious market impacts of PJM’s ‘focused’ MOPR. We believe a more holistic solution to address market design issues is needed, based on meaningful input from all stakeholders and sufficient time to address their concerns.
PJM’s focused MOPR as allowed to go into effect by FERC must be rejected. We are at a critical juncture for America’s energy future, with concerns over reliability and cost as we work to bring cleaner generation to the grid. The energy transition can be relatively swift and still ensure reliability and affordability – but only if built on a competitive foundation that values reliability first. Crippling competition in the nation’s largest electricity market could undo more than two decades of progress and return us to regressive approaches that encourage monopoly control, slow deployment of new technology, and raise prices for consumers – stifling the entrepreneurial spirit, private investment and innovation needed to meet the complex challenges facing the power grid.”
EPSA in August 2021 submitted a protest filing and affidavit to FERC calling on the Commission to reject PJM’s proposal.
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The Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA) is the national trade association representing America’s competitive power suppliers. EPSA members provide about 150,000 MW of reliable and competitively priced electricity from environmentally responsible facilities using a diverse mix of fuels and technologies including natural gas, wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, storage, biomass, and coal. EPSA seeks to bring the benefits of competition to all power customers.Learn more at www.epsa.org, subscribe to EPSA’s podcast “Energy Solutions,” and connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter @EPSAnews.
