PJM Interconnection, the grid operator for the District of Columbia and portions of 13 states across the mid-Atlantic, South and Midwest, has drawn the ire of the clean energy industry over its proposal to prioritize large nuclear and gas projects over renewable energy projects that have waited for years to connect to the region’s electric grid.
The Reliability Resource Initiative (RRI) is PJM’s proposed plan to expedite the construction of new electricity generation projects in its service area to mitigate an impending reliability crisis the grid operator foresees toward the end of the decade as older, dirtier plants retire and demand soars due to data centers and rapid electrification. Under the proposal, up to 50 projects are expected to be permitted to meet the shortfall.
PJM believes new dispatchable generation sources, including natural gas-fired power plants, are needed to maintain grid reliability, which it says is driven in part by state-level clean energy policies such as closing coal-fired power plants.
But according to the clean energy industry, the RRI proposal unfairly allows these projects to jump the queue ahead of clean, renewable resources. Industry leaders believe that if clean energy projects were allowed to advance just as rapidly, they could mitigate the reliability crisis PJM anticipates. New non-renewable plants could also undermine state-level clean energy goals by increasing the carbon intensity of PJM’s generation mix, the industry groups said.