TOM JOHNSON | APRIL 3, 2017
Operator of nation’s largest power grid reports increased reliance on natural gas and renewables is not adversely affecting sustainability
In a rapidly changing energy sector, are there still enough power plants available to provide the electricity everyone needs?
The operator of the nation’s largest power grid is answering that question in the affirmative. Its new study finds that with the addition of more natural-gas and renewable resources the system can remain reliable.
With the retirement of scores of coal plants and the early closing of some nuclear units, PJM Interconnection sought to determine whether the system is losing too many traditional resources in a new assessment, “PJM’s Evolving Resource Mix and System Reliability.’’
The study highlights some of the issues affecting the energy sector in New Jersey, which will see its two biggest coal units shut down later this year; its oldest-running nuclear plant, Oyster Creek, scheduled to shut down at the end of 2019; and questions raised about the economic viability of nuclear units elsewhere.
As elsewhere, at least five new natural-gas plants have either come on line or will soon be active, amid a rapid and controversial expansion of the gas pipeline infrastructure in the state. Amid all this activity, clean-energy advocates are pushing state policymakers to ramp up reliance on renewable sources of energy, such as solar and offshore wind.
