Pending legislation in the State House of Representatives that would set more ambitious long-term targets for the commonwealth to address environmental and climate impacts and realize the economic potential of renewable energy was strongly opposed by the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association (PMA) on Monday.
“This is not just disastrous energy policy, it’s expensively disastrous energy policy,” David Taylor, PMA’s president and CEO, testified yesterday during a House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee hearing on House Bill (HB) 1467.
The hearing focused on how the proposed bill would update the Advanced Energy Portfolio Standards (AEPS) Act, which passed in 1994 and requires electric distribution companies to get 8 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2021.
“This is far less than other states,” said House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee Chairman Greg Vitali, citing neighbors like New Jersey, which has a renewable portfolio standard for reaching 35 percent by 2025, while Maryland’s is 50 percent by 2030.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro made a campaign promise to go “30 by 30,” a goal to secure 30 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030, and one bill that would do this is HB 1467, Vitali said.
“Climate change is the most serious, long-term threat to this planet and Pennsylvania is a major greenhouse gas producer,” Vitali said during the hearing. “Scientists tell us we must reach carbon neutrality by mid-century to avoid the worst effects of climate change and this necessarily involves the expansion of renewable energy.”
David Althoff, director of the Energy Programs Office at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), testified that the Shapiro administration does support HB 1467, which Althoff said has a lot of the attributes his office supports, particularly the 30 percent by 2030 proposal.
HB 1467, introduced in April by State Rep. Danielle Friel Otten (D-Chester), includes specific targets for in-state grid-scale solar and in-state distributed generation solar. It also enables community solar projects, which would allow customers to subscribe to a portion of electricity generated by an off-site solar project and get credit on their utility bill.
But PMA, the statewide nonprofit trade organization representing the people who make things in the commonwealth, opposes any expansions to the AEPS, and therefore slammed HB 1467.
Not only is the proposed measure an environmental disaster, Taylor said, it’s a threat to public safety, a danger to American national security, a disgrace on labor and human rights, and an abuse of Pennsylvania ratepayers.
“A state mandate requiring 30 percent of all electricity be produced by solar panels would be an environmental disaster because the low-yield, intermittency, and fragility of that technology would require an impossibly large footprint that would destroy natural habitat, threaten groundwater with excessive runoff, and cause a disposal crisis,” Taylor testified.
He also said that HB 1467 is a threat to public safety because it would destabilize the electric grid and increase the probability of blackouts, which aren’t just a potential nuisance but “a deadly threat” to hospitals, nursing homes, fire and police stations, and other critical infrastructure.
“Drastically expanding the AEPS standards to unachievable levels will certainly expedite the retirement of existing generation capacity, making the already existing problem of forecasted grid reliability issues within the PJM network even worse,” said Taylor.
That statement seemed to be reinforced by testimony from Asim Haque, senior vice president of State and Member Services at PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization (RTO) that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, including Pennsylvania.
“We are concerned about pushing these resources off the system before these other resources are on the system, thereby creating this sort of gap in time, this challenge where you’ve got supply and demand,” Haque said.
Haque testified that PJM was not taking a position on HB 1467, and that he attended the hearing to serve as a resource.
“Frankly, we want all resources and we are welcoming to renewable resources finding their way onto the grid,” he said. “At the same time, we have to be thoughtful about the orderly conceivable exit of resources, as well. We support getting through this energy transition cost-effectively and reliably.”
Regarding cost, PMA’s Taylor said if House Bill 1467 were to be in effect today, the legislation would require a 30 percent solar mandate, an increase of 60 times the current standard.
“At current compliance prices, without accounting for inflation eight years from now, this would cost Pennsylvania ratepayers $1.8 billion, per year,” he said. “Even if we could physically and technologically meet the 30 percent mandate in the proposed legislation, which we cannot, there would be separate billions and billions of dollars in costs tied to transmission line upgrades; these upgrades are borne by the utility customers of the state where the infrastructure is located.”
For example, Maryland’s recent passage of public policy, said Taylor, has forced the early retirement of several power plants, causing PJM to call for $5 billion in transmission upgrades to compensate for the loss.”
State Rep. Martin Causer, Republican chair of the committee, acknowledged that there are “some significant concerns” about HB 1467, and reiterated his own concerns about grid reliability, particularly if some resources, like a coal plant, are removed or shut down before new resources are fully interconnected and operational.
Althoff with the DEP answered that it’s not about not having electricity. “It’s about will electricity be available in high-demand moments and what assets will be able to respond at that time,” he said.
Taylor outlined other issues PMA has with HB 1467, as well.
“Time today is limited, and that’s a problem because there are many more policy topics related to AEPS that lawmakers should consider before moving forward with legislation,” he told the committee.
For instance, some of these issues include the impact of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and its impact on existing AEPS regulations causing even more expedited retirements of the state’s existing energy assets, Taylor testified.
Another issue regards how existing net metering provisions are harming ratepayers by paying rooftop solar customers the retail rate for electricity even though a utility can obtain electricity at a fraction of the retail rate through the wholesale market while charging those that do not have rooftop solar retail rates instead of wholesale, he added.
There also should be a deeper dive into PJM grid reliability and how policy impacts by the Pennsylvania legislature will affect all 13 states that are a part of that network; how the electrification of the grids, devices, digital storage, vehicles, and processes will constrain current marketplace capacity; and the role that foreign adversaries like China play in monopolizing green energy supply chains, among many others, said Taylor.