PJM, the power grid covering 13-states including New Jersey, Virginia, Ohio and west to parts of Illinois and Michigan, released a February 2023 report on the impacts of rapid baseload electric power plant retirements (from coal, natural gas, and nuclear), increasing consumer demand through electrification policies, and the addition of intermittent power sources like wind and solar to replace these retiring assets.
- The report stated these factors “in combination, present increasing reliability risks during the transition, due to a potential timing mismatch between resource retirements, load growth and the pace of new generation entry.”
- It also stated government policies would put up to 21% of current PJM generating assets at risk of retirement, “which appears to be more certain than the timely arrival of replacement generation resources.” 94% of the new capacity would be nameplate renewable capacity, even though the historic pattern is only 5% of such projects are completed. “The current pace of new [proposed power resources] would be insufficient to keep up with expected retirements and demand growth by 2030.”
- “If significantly more natural gas capacity achieved commercial operation, it could help avoid reliability issues.”
You can download the report by clicking here.