News Stories

New Jersey’s new Residential Energy Assistance Payment (REAP) initiative will provide financial assistance to up to 278,000 qualified low-income customers using funds from the NJCEP program. During the September bill cycle, a $175 one-time bill credit will be issued to these customers on their electric or gas bills regardless of whether the customers are on BGS/BGSS or signed up with a TPS.  

First Energy’s CEO Brian Tierney said at an earnings conference that the results of PJM’s last two capacity auctions, with soaring prices but inadequate amounts of new, cleared generation, show that PJM is unable to meet the power needs of its stakeholders. The latest capacity auction produced record-setting prices — with consumers set to pay $14.7 billion for capacity in the 2025/26 delivery year, up from $2.2 billion in the last auction — but only drew in 110 MW of new generation, down from 330 MW in the previous auction.  Tierney doubts PJM’s capacity market will attract significant power plant investment in the region to fix the issue even if it sends some positive price signals, so FirstEnergy is “actively engaged” in talks on alternative ways to build power supplies.  

A recent report by Morgan Stanley predicts that capacity prices for the majority of PJM’s footprint could hit a $695/MW-day price cap, up 157% from the record-high of $270/MW-day reached in PJM’s July capacity auction and driven by tight power supplies.  When combined with PJM’s last capacity auction, the next auction could increase residential electricity bills by roughly 20%, according to the analysts. Morgan Stanley analysts said they doubt there will be enough time for significant amounts of new supply to enter the market given permitting and construction timelines.