PJM Interconnection’s Senior Vice President Asim Haque addressed concerns and misconceptions about the regional power grid operator at the New Jersey Business & Industry Association’s annual Energy and Environmental Policy Forum this week. The event, which saw more than 450 attendees, came amid heightened debate over rising electricity costs and the state’s energy policy.
Earlier in 2025, electricity prices increased for all four of New Jersey’s regulated electric distribution companies after the state’s 24th annual Basic Generation Service auction. This resulted in monthly bill hikes for residents ranging from 17.23% to 20.20%, depending on their service area.
NJBIA has cautioned that Governor Phil Murphy’s clean energy goals—which emphasize offshore wind, solar, and other renewable sources without expanding natural gas or nuclear capacity—could lead to higher energy prices.
The issue has become politically charged during the gubernatorial election year. Republicans have attributed rising costs to state policies supporting renewables, while Democrats have scrutinized PJM’s operations and suggested investigations into its practices.
Haque used his remarks to clarify PJM’s role as a nonprofit grid operator serving approximately 67 million consumers. “(Our) mission is power grid reliability,” Haque said. “To keep the lights on for the 67 million consumers in our footprint. It is a mission that we take very seriously and is a mission that is at the heart of every action that we take at PJM.”
He explained that PJM does not profit from higher prices: “We operate as a nonprofit. We don’t have shareholders. We don’t have share prices. We do not have earnings. We do not profit from high energy prices.
“We have a budget that we submit to our federal regulator, who is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and we collect what we need in order to operate the power grid. We are a fully regulated entity.”
Addressing claims of making decisions without stakeholder input, Haque stated: “Every major issue gets discussion in public stakeholder processes and gets a vote by a spectrum of entities in the industry, including consumer advocates. The New Jersey Office of the Consumer Advocate is one of those entities that gets a vote on things that happen within the PJM stakeholder sphere.
“Then that issue goes to FERC, where there is more feedback provided via a fully regulated, litigated proceeding. We have an independent board that has no financial entanglements with any of our utilities or generators, a market monitor that ensures none of our generators are conducting nefarious activity in our markets.
“We have heard that these markets are somehow rigged in some way, shape or form. There are a lot of safeguards around that… Ultimately, all of that adds up to this concept that we are a mission-driven organization… divorced again from any concept of financial earnings or profit.”
Haque also responded to criticism regarding support for renewable resources such as wind energy: “(There) is a metric called effective load-carrying capability… when you flip the switch you don’t know whether that energy you are consuming is from coal… nuclear… gas or… renewable watt.
“But when you trace that watt all the way back… each one … has its different availability and capability…. Most markets in the world are utilizing effective load carrying capability…. If nuclear is …95% ELCC… Solar has relatively low ELCC…. Offshore wind is …60% ELCC….
“If you want to match … nuclear plant with solar, you need 9 times or 10 times… Offshore wind would be about 1-1/2 times…. We welcome all these resources… just as we would have welcomed offshore wind…. It’s unfortunate those developers couldn’t make economics pencil out…. But …does not …change [our] documented… history …wanting to work with New Jersey…”
On changes made to connect new generation projects—including renewables—to PJM’s system more efficiently since noticing an increase in smaller-scale projects beginning around 2020, Haque explained: “Our queue used to consist of …first-come first-serve study framework…, but… had to change …to ‘first-ready first-out’ and study these projects in clusters…
“We started this reform effort with over 200,000 megawatts worth of projects… now just down to 46,000 megawatts… will be processed next year…. Sixty-three thousand megawatts worth …have either signed or been issued agreements…”
Regarding stalled project completions despite queue progress: “Here’s the thing though: We haven’t been seeing those resources constructed over past few years…. Reasons …are constraints with global supply chain,… financing…, state/federal permitting restrictions….
“We are going to finish this process out…. But real question is after spending last four,… six years processing [projects] how much power will we actually get?… My honest answer …is I don’t know….
“After we tell developers they can plug into grid it’s out of our control.… Let me just say this: We need watts.… I don’t care what type fuel it is.… These are all primarily renewable resources.… We welcome all these resources…”
