NJBIA Deputy Chief Government Affairs Officer Ray Cantor provided the following testimony today for the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities virtual public stakeholder meeting to update the state’s 2024 Energy Master Plan. 

The plan, upon initial information, continues to prioritize all-electrification policies in New Jersey, despite great affordability and reliability concerns in the state resulting from those efforts. 

“We have a fundamental problem with where this Energy Master Plan seems to be going. It seems to be repeating the same mistakes that the prior energy master plan did.

“The basic problem is you have a wrong starting point. While we appreciate and do support our decarbonization goals, when those goals become the driver of what the policies are, we end up where we are now - with energy rates becoming unaffordable and our grid becoming unreliable.

“We must first focus on affordability and reliability. We need resource adequacy as the alarms have been sounded by PJM and national entities as well.

“We appreciate the fact that you mentioned that we need to make sure that energy is affordable for low-income people. But I would beg to differ that it's not just low-income people who struggle with energy costs. The middle class in New Jersey is struggling as well. And, of course, our businesses need affordable and reliable energy as well. They should not be left out of this equation — especially our manufacturing base, which we want to grow in New Jersey.

“We should not be like Germany or England or other EU countries that are deindustrializing. We need to reindustrialize, and energy is a main part of that.

“While we do support expansion of renewables, our solar industries, and, hopefully, our offshore wind industry will find its footing and become a part of the all-of-the-above mixture, we need to rely on what we know works. And, primarily, at this point in time, we need more natural gas generation.

“Natural gas generation will support and address our resource adequacy needs in the most effective and fast manner. And because we have emission limits on new natural gas power plants, emissions from new natural gas generation facilities in New Jersey will actually have lower emissions than the PJM grid, which uses dirty coal generation from western states. We can actually reduce carbon emissions by building more natural gas generation.

“I recognize that you laid out a program where you think this (Energy Master Plan) could be more affordable. But if these options were more affordable, like EVs, the market would drive us there as they have already driven down carbon cost. So, again, we say to focus on reliability and affordability."