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December 12, 2025

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New Study Highlights Winter Benefits of OSW in New England

The addition of 3,500 MW of offshore wind capacity would have reduced ISO-NE energy market costs by about $400 million over the past winter, according to a recent study by Daymark Energy Advisors. The study also found the added capacity would have eliminated $128 million in costs associated with a higher capacity price in the Southeast New England capacity zone.

The study, sponsored by clean energy association RENEW Northeast, comes in the wake of the Trump administration’s stop-work order on Revolution Wind, a 704-MW project contracted by Connecticut and Rhode Island that is estimated to be 80% complete. (See BOEM Slaps Stop-work Order on Revolution Wind.)

“This study shows that delays in bringing offshore wind projects online are costing New England families and businesses real money,” said Francis Pullaro, president of RENEW Northeast.

Daymark used historical weather data to estimate the offshore wind production profile over the past winter and compared this forecast production with ISO-NE real-time energy offer data. The firm estimated that the added wind resources would have contributed 3.6 billion kWh of electricity over the winter months, reducing the need for high-cost fossil units. The study also found that the wind resources would have reduced carbon emissions by about 1.8 million tons.

In the capacity market, Daymark noted that a shortage of capacity cleared in the Southeast New England zone caused a higher clearing price ($3.98/kW-month) than the rest-of-pool (ROP) price ($2.611/kW-month). It said the injection of 3,500 MW of offshore wind would have avoided this issue, saving $128 million in capacity costs by substituting the higher zone-specific price with the ROP price, “even after accounting for increased cost of winter excess capacity.”

“The OSW capacity would have also displaced the highest price cleared capacity in ROP, likely decreasing the ROP price,” Daymark added. “Our analysis conservatively assumes no additional savings from this likely outcome.”

New England faced high electricity prices and high consumer energy costs over the past winter due to consistently cold weather.

The region’s power sector has become increasingly reliant on natural gas over the past decade, but gas infrastructure into the region is constrained, leaving it susceptible to large price spikes during cold periods. Gas generators typically do not enter firm gas supply contracts, and gas resources often struggle with gas supply during cold periods when heating demand from gas distribution utilities is high.

According to ISO-NE, energy costs over the past winter were 147% higher than the previous winter, driven by a 179% increase in gas prices, and the total estimated wholesale market cost of electricity increased by about $2.4 billion. (See New England Energy Market Costs Grew by over $2B in 2024/25 Winter.)

The RTO has said offshore wind’s increased production profile during the winter would provide significant reliability benefits by allowing generators to conserve stored fuel. (See ISO-NE Warns Halting Revolution Wind Boosts Reliability Risk.)

However, the offshore wind industry in the region faces an uncertain future due to antagonism from the Trump administration, which has created both short-term challenges and long-term concerns about the ability to attract the investment needed for development.

“With several OSW projects already contracted but delayed, the findings underscore the urgent need to accelerate offshore wind deployment to meet both economic and climate goals,” Pullaro said.

Susan Muller, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Daymark study “shows the power of offshore wind to lower energy prices in New England, especially in winter,” and added that “New Englanders need rate relief and a more reliable grid now, and President Trump’s nonsensical decision to stall a nearly completed project cannot stand.”

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Newsom Renews Call for Passage of Pathways Bill

California Gov. Gavin Newsom renewed his call for state lawmakers to pass a bill to authorize CAISO to relinquish governance of its electricity markets and allow it and the state’s utilities to participate in a new “regional organization” designed to oversee a West-wide market. 

The bill would implement the plans of the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative, a multistate effort to create an independent “regional organization” (RO) to govern CAISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market and Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM), the latter set to launch in 2026.  

“I’m calling on the Legislature to pass a viable proposal to expand regional power markets — it’s our best shot at affordability this year,” Newsom said in press release Aug. 27. “Over $1 billion in economic benefits to our state is on the line, and failure to get this done will mean higher electric bills, more pollution and a less reliable power grid. Californians deserve action now to make their electric bills more affordable.” 

The statement was the first from the governor on the issue since the Legislature resumed the 2025 session Aug. 19 after a monthlong summer recess.   

Newsom’s reference to a “viable proposal” suggests it’s still an open question whether the legislation will be Senate Bill 540 — known as the “Pathways” bill — or another bill. With the legislative session set to wrap up Sept. 12, the clock is ticking on any effort to get a bill passed. 

SB 540 passed the state Senate in June on a 36-0 vote, but the bill’s first hearing in the Assembly’s Utilities and Energy Committee, scheduled for July 16, was delayed until after the summer break at the request of the bill’s author, Sen. Josh Becker (D). (See Calif. Pathways Bill Delayed After Orgs Withdraw Support, While Newsom Signals Backing for Effort.) 

Becker sought the delay after 21 organizations pulled their backing for the bill in response to an amendment that would establish a new Regional Energy Market Oversight Council charged with ensuring CAISO’s participation in the RO “serves the interests of the state.” The new council would be authorized to mandate withdrawal by the ISO and utilities if those interests are compromised.  

The organizations — which include Environmental Defense Fund, PacifiCorp, Advanced Energy United, Amazon and Portland General Electric — called the amendment “unacceptable” and asked lawmakers to remove it. 

Responding to a reporter’s question during a July 31 press conference, Newsom reiterated his previous support for the Pathways effort and praised the coalition behind SB 540, saying, “I’m not aware of a more diverse and large coalition I’ve seen on an issue of energy in some time.” The group includes labor unions and publicly owned utilities that strongly opposed past efforts to “regionalize” CAISO. 

Newsom’s Aug. 27 press release contained a link to an Aug. 13 post on the governor’s X account showing him meeting with a coalition of Pathways supporters.  

“I’m calling on the Legislature to enable the expansion of regional energy markets to lower energy costs, reduce air pollution and avoid power outages,” Newsom said in the post. 

Pathways Leader ‘Optimistic’

But the language coming out of the offices of Newsom and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas has left open the possibility that the provisions in the original Pathways bill could be tacked on to another bill. With fewer than three weeks left in the session, SB 540 hasn’t been scheduled for an initial Assembly committee hearing. 

Still, when  RTO Insider  previously asked the two offices about the potential for other strategies that don’t include SB 540, both declined to comment, while a source in the governor’s office said Newsom would let lawmakers take the lead on the effort. 

In an Aug. 26 email to RTO Insider, Kathleen Staks, co-chair of the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative’s Launch Committee, noted that Newsom and Rivas have come out in “very public support” of the Pathways bill.  

“In addition, there continues to be an enormous diverse coalition in support of getting this policy done this year (entirely separate from the Launch Committee, which is not engaging in legislative efforts),” said Staks, who is executive director of Western Freedom. While the committee is not involved in lobbying, some of its California members are working to advance the bill in their other organizational capacities. 

“The bill has not yet been scheduled for a policy committee hearing in the Assembly because it has been in negotiations between the Gov’s office, Senate and Assembly, along with some other big energy issues,” Staks wrote. “The coalition continues to advocate for passing a version of SB 540 that works for the West, and we are optimistic that it will get done this year.” 

The offices of Sen. Becker and Speaker Rivas did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication of this article. 

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N.J. Plan Would Put RGGI Funds into Storage, Infrastructure

New Jersey is looking to broaden the portfolio on which it will spend hundreds of millions of dollars from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to include electrifying multifamily housing and accelerating investment in wind and solar infrastructure.

The state’s draft investment plan for 2026 to 2028 — known as the “Auction Proceeds Scoping Document” — also calls for investment to boost energy storage capacity and to provide incentives for development of the clean energy supply chain and manufacturing facilities.

The proposal outlines how the state, which has received a total of $922.9 million for two funding plans since it rejoined RGGI in 2020, could use its third tranche of funds. The final plan will be shaped by stakeholder input from four public hearings and other comments. The first hearing took place Aug. 21. Three more are scheduled.

Under the RGGI system, which includes New Jersey and 10 other states, the coalition sets a steadily declining regional cap on carbon dioxide emissions. Certain plants that exceed the cap must pay for a “RGGI CO2 allowance” for every short ton of CO2 emitted, and the proceeds are distributed among the participating states for use in combating climate change emissions.

New Jersey’s two earlier funding plans focused on projects to cut emissions in the transportation sector, the largest emitting category with 34% of the state’s emissions, and building electrification. While electricity generation is the second-largest category, with 17%, the three components of the building sector — residential, commercial and industrial buildings — account for 32% of the state’s emissions.

Innovation Sought

The new elements in the latest plan seek to cut that pollution, Sean Sonnemann, manager of clean energy for the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA), said at the first hearing to gather input on the plan. The agency administers about 60% of the RGGI funds, while the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) and Department of Environmental Protection each administer 20% of the funds.

“We are considering supporting multifamily buildings in the state, especially those that may not be covered by other state programs, such as corporate or cooperatively owned buildings, senior housing and public housing,” he said.

The agency also is considering “other ways to encourage the development of zero-energy new construction buildings, rather than continue with business as usual, older technologies that may be more damaging to the environment,” he said.

The BPU, meanwhile, intends to support programs such as commercial-scale geothermal projects. It also plans to support income-qualified customers who use existing energy efficiency programs to implement additional decarbonization efforts such as heat pumps, he said.

New Jersey’s emphasis on using RGGI funds to address transportation emissions continues as a key element of the third plan. The plan says the state’s number of non-private charging stations, which now stands at 4,400, increased 30 to 40% between 2023 and 2024. It proposes for the first time to fund the installation of EV workplace charging stations and the creation of “charging depots” for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.

Other new elements include providing support for “managed charging programs and other capacity limiting measures” that help cut ratepayer bills by reducing energy use in peak hours. The plan also looks to “promote electric micro-transit and community mobility, public-serving vehicles and related infrastructure.”

Alternative Energy

The public airing of the plan drew a handful of speakers. One asked if the state planned to look beyond “wind, solar and batteries” to “more innovative clean energy technologies — for example, “waste heat to power.” He noted that the federal government provides a tax credit to support such projects, but the state does not.

Sonnemann, of the EDA, said the state wants to dedicate funds for non-traditional “emerging renewable and clean technologies” but has not yet put together a list of what the endorsed technologies might be. He said the intent can be found in a section of the plan that says the state could invest in technologies such as “fusion, tidal.” The section also calls for investment to create “innovation hubs and related clean energy technology accelerators” and to strengthen the clean energy supply chain.

“New Jersey has the potential to be a leader and clean energy technology exporter, by developing innovative technologies” that could be used to “decarbonize other economies across the globe,” the plan says.

Another speaker, Matt Polsky, said that given the change in attitude toward clean energy in the federal government, he felt New Jersey’s plan was insufficient.

“They have gone from being a partner to actually part of the problem,” he said of the current administration. “And therefore you really, really need to be thinking out of the box a lot more than I’ve ever seen you do over the decades.”

‘Leakage’ Concerns

The plan comes amid criticism that RGGI, having successfully pushed New Jersey to reduce or eliminate emissions from fossil fuel generators, may be hampering the state as it searches for ways to address the expected significant shortfall of generation.

Data center expansion amid fossil fuel generator retirements is exacerbated by the slow pace that new energy sources are coming online. Emissions restrictions imposed by RGGI may limit the development of some of those new sources.

Liam Baker, senior vice president for regulatory affairs at Alpha Generation, a Connecticut-based electric generation company, expressed concern at an Aug. 5 resource adequacy conference held by the BPU that while RGGI had been “very successful” at cutting emissions, it now is “increasing PJM-wide emissions by millions of tons while costing New Jersey ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually.”

Baker and other critics, among them Fred DeSanti, executive director of the New Jersey Solar Energy Coalition, argue that the RGGI system causes “leakage.”

“Leakage means it’s cheaper to operate coal-fired generation in Pennsylvania and export it to New Jersey,” Baker said at the Aug. 5 conference. “It’s cheaper to do that than operate our clean in-state combined-cycle fleet.”

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Hepper Replaces Cupparo as SPP Board Chair

SPP said Aug. 27 that Vice Chair Ray Hepper has been serving as the Board of Directors’ chair since Aug. 12. 

Hepper replaced John Cupparo, who is stepping away from the position’s time commitments because of personal reasons, SPP said. 

Cupparo was not present for the board’s August meeting, but did call in. He was elected to the board in 2022 and became chair in 2024. He plans to continue participating in the Strategic Planning and Corporate Governance committees and Interim Markets+ Independent Panel. 

The RTO said it will announce a new vice chair before October. 

Hepper has more than 30 years of experience in the electric utility industry. He served as ISO-NE’s general counsel until retiring in 2018. He also represented California in restructuring the billions of dollars’ worth of power contracts entered into during the 2000 energy crisis. 

Hepper briefly served on ERCOT’s board in 2021. However, state law following that year’s Winter Storm Uri required that the ISO’s independent directors all reside in Texas. 

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State-level Efforts to Limit Renewables Blunted in 2025

Proposals that would negatively affect renewable energy far outnumbered supportive legislation introduced in state legislatures in the first half of 2025, Clean Tomorrow reports. 

But of the 305 bills in 47 states tracked by the clean energy advocacy organization’s Siting Solutions Project, only 39 have been signed into law or are still pending — 10 of them permissive and seven restrictive. 

Clean Tomorrow brought the details together in its new report “The State of Siting: 2025 Legislative Roundup.” 

Not surprisingly, the report flags a stark partisan divide among those making the proposals: Restrictive legislation proposed by Republicans outnumbered their permissive proposals by a 9-1 ratio. Democrats authored substantially fewer proposals, but their supportive measures outnumbered their restrictive measures by a 2-1 ratio. 

Both parties proposed a similar number of bills judged likely to have a neutral or ambiguous effect, such as through small procedural or technical adjustments. 

Notably, the small number of bipartisan proposals were more evenly split between restrictive, neutral and permissive. But 40% of them became law — twice the percentage of Democratic proposals and four times the percentage of Republican proposals enacted. 

The greatest number of restrictive bills involved increasing the number and types of local approvals required for renewable energy proposals — a frequent rallying cry for home rule advocates and clean energy opponents, and a potential quagmire for developers. 

Other common restrictive policy proposals entailed: 

    • increasing local zoning authority; 
    • expanding setback requirements; 
    • imposing financial security mandates; 
    • extended notification and hearing processes; 
    • limits on siting on agricultural land; and 
    • limits on development on public lands. 

Solar, storage and wind development has been a divisive subject for years and became more polarizing as President Joe Biden guided a massive renewables funding package into law and President Donald Trump cranked up the anti-renewable rhetoric as part of his second-term pro-fossil energy dominance initiative.

In its Aug. 22 announcement of the legislative analysis, Clean Tomorrow cited a June report by the Pew Research Center that contrasted results of 2016 and 2025 surveys. 

Wind and solar had been the types of energy development most heavily supported by Democrats and Republicans alike surveyed in 2016 and remained the most favored by Democrats in 2025, Pew said. But wind and solar are now Republicans’ least-favored option, behind nuclear, offshore drilling, hydrofracking and coal mining. 

Clean Tomorrow noted the importance of state-level policies in determining the future of the nation’s clean energy economy and said the 2026 legislative season will help clarify whether the flurry of restrictive proposals in 2025 is more than a temporary backlash. 

The report predicts significant siting legislation will advance in Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Virginia in 2026, and summarizes the issues. 

It also breaks down specifics on 2025 developments in key states. 

Other takeaways from the report include: 

    • Restrictive legislation is most common in states that have had the largest wind and solar generation additions. 
    • Opponents tried to repeal or weaken permissive siting reforms that several states had enacted in the past four years. 
    • Texas, Illinois and New York led the nation in number of legislative proposals; restrictive measures outnumbered supportive measures by a wide margin in all three states, but New York saw a much larger percentage of neutral proposals than Texas or Illinois. 
    • Siting and permitting reforms that are technology-agnostic fare better in states with at least one Republican legislative chamber but tend to be opposed by environmental advocates because they smooth the path for new natural gas infrastructure. 
    • In 2025, Texas saw the nation’s greatest number of restrictive legislative proposals, some of which had the potential to eviscerate the renewable energy industry there. But only three of 32 measures became law, and they carried only modest changes. 
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Texas RE Speaker Discusses Cyber Recovery Obligations

With threat actors becoming more aggressive and sophisticated in their tactics, companies must be prepared for hard decisions after a data breach, a cybersecurity lawyer told attendees of a webinar hosted by the Texas Reliability Entity. 

Speaking at Texas RE’s regular Talk with Texas RE event Aug. 26, Rebecca Jones, a partner at cybersecurity-focused law firm Mullen Coughlin, said over the past three years, the firm has seen a steady rise in the number of data breach incidents it handles — from just under 3,000 incidents in 2022 to more than 4,200 in 2024. In the first six months of this year Mullen Coughlin dealt with more than 2,100 incidents. 

The most common type of event that Jones and her colleagues have dealt with since 2022 is a business email compromise. These attacks, constituting 34 to 38% of the firm’s business each year, involve malicious actors gaining control of an official company email and using it to trick real employees into sharing sensitive information or credentials. 

Ransomware is the next most common incident type, with 23 to 26% of events handled each year. Jones said this style of attack has become more elaborate recently, with a growing incidence of what the firm calls “double extortion” — cases in which the threat actor encrypts a target’s files so that they are inaccessible until a ransom is received, while also copying the data to use for their own ends. 

“Threat actors [are] increasingly becoming more aggressive with their victim companies and engaging in harassment tactics to get them to pay the demand, or at least to engage in negotiations,” Jones said. “That might look like a threat actor calling employees, calling the CEO, calling board members on their cell phones, letting people know that there has been an attack and … threatening to expose data publicly, on the dark web or on the regular internet.” 

In any incident, Jones said victims need to be ready to protect their interests; the incident response team is “really the meat and potatoes of the firm,” accounting for most of the attorneys there. She presented a potential “road map” for such a scenario, outlining steps the firm’s clients have taken from the beginning to the end of the process.  

The map starts with the detection of a compromise, followed by mobilizing the victim’s incident response team and following its process for restoration of data if necessary. An outside forensics team may be engaged to investigate the cause of the incident. 

While the forensic investigator may also be tasked with negotiating with the attackers themselves, Jones said companies often prefer to hire a separate negotiating team with experience in such incidents. Although many companies end up paying the ransom to recover their systems, a good negotiator can usually bargain a payment down from an initial extreme figure to one that is more manageable, she explained. 

The firm will usually recommend that victims hire a public relations firm as well, ensuring that their communication is accurate and does not trigger unnecessary obligations. Companies must comply with the legal disclosure requirements, Jones emphasized, but they should also be aware of the impact that their public messaging has.  

“We don’t use the term ‘breach’ if we can avoid it … because it’s something that people will say without knowing what it means,” Jones said. “A breach means that there was unauthorized access or acquisition of legally protected information, and you have to notify individuals and probably regulators. Saying that you have a breach can imply that you have all of these obligations, so it’s not something that you would want to use at the outset of an incident when you may not even have a breach.”  

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26.5 GW of Mostly Gas Gen Compete for MISO’s Sped-up Grid Treatment

MISO announced that its first interconnection queue express lane application window turned up 47 projects at a little more than 26.5 GW of proposed new capacity, with natural gas generation accounting for about 20 GW.  

The grid operator said projects are spread across 12 states and include 74% natural gas, 15% battery storage, 4% wind, 4% solar and 3% nuclear power. MISO’s interconnection fast lane is meant to maintain resource adequacy and was approved by FERC in July. (See FERC Approves MISO Interconnection Queue Fast Lane.)  

Despite the apparent dominance of natural gas across 22 project requests, MISO leadership said the applicant pool represented a “large, diverse” assortment.  

“This broad mix underscores MISO’s evolving energy landscape and the urgent need to bring new resources online to address growing reliability challenges,” MISO Vice President of System Planning Aubrey Johnson said in a press release. “These projects are designed to meet localized and accelerating demand growth.” 

MISO’s temporary fast lane process is designed to study up to 10 projects per quarter. MISO will discontinue the special study process after it processes a maximum of 68 projects, with the program due to sunset no later than Aug. 31, 2027. MISO said some projects on the first list may have to be shifted to future study cycles.  

MISO said it’s evaluating the applications for completeness and will publish an approved list of projects that will proceed to study sometime after Sept. 2. Projects must show they will help serve “clear resource adequacy or reliability need,” according to MISO, and must have verification from relevant regulatory authorities. Projects also need to be commercially operable within three to six years.  

“These projects must meet strict requirements to ensure that only viable, needed projects are considered,” Johnson said.  

MISO accepted the interconnection requests Aug. 6-11 as part of its first study cycle and has said eligible projects will be studied on a first-come, first-served basis.  

Critics of the process said it would give thermal resources preferential treatment over renewable energy and favor load-serving entities’ projects while discriminating against independent power producers. (See MISO’s Queue Fast Lane, Take 2, Nets Déjà vu Arguments.) 

MISO declined to comment on what share of the generation proposals originated from independent power producers versus load-serving entities. It also refused to say whether it expected the majority gas proposals. Spokesperson Brandon Morris said MISO had nothing further to add at this time.  

MISO’s list appears to include NextEra Energy’s attempt to recommission the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant in Iowa. (See NextEra Closer to Recommissioning Duane Arnold with FERC Waivers.) Louisiana held the highest number of gas requests, at five, which includes a trio of recently approved gas plants to power a $10 billion Meta data center in the northeastern part of the state. (See Louisiana PSC Approves 3 Controversial Gas Plants Ahead of Schedule for Meta Data Center.)  

Wisconsin, which has a goal to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity by 2050, followed with four requests for gas plants. Indiana and Iowa followed with three requests apiece.  

Environmental nonprofits and clean energy groups have sought a rehearing of FERC’s decision to approve the expedited interconnection process. Clean Wisconsin, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and the Sustainable FERC Project have banded together to file one rehearing request, while the American Clean Power Association, the Solar Energy Industries Association, the Southern Renewable Energy Association and Clean Grid Alliance have joined forces on another. Both rehearing requests, filed Aug. 20, again allege the process is discriminatory and challenge the notion that MISO faces imminent resource adequacy deficiencies that justify a queue fast track.  

“This is a predictable and devastating outcome for the 200 GW of clean, affordable energy that are being punished for playing by the rules,” Sierra Club senior campaign adviser Jessi Eidbo said in a statement to RTO Insider. Eidbo was referring to existing renewable energy and clean generation in MISO’s approximately 300 GW normal interconnection queue.  

“Millions of people served by utilities in the central United States will see unnecessarily higher monthly electric bills because MISO and Trump are needlessly dismantling the clean energy economy,” Eidbo said. 

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Robert Ethier, Le Xie Nominated for PJM Board

PJM’s Nominating Committee has named two candidates to fill vacant seats on the RTO’s Board of Managers: Robert Ethier, former ISO-NE executive, and Le Xie, faculty co-director of the Power and AI Initiative at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 

The RTO’s Members Committee (MC) will vote on the two candidates during its Sept. 25 meeting. Ethier and Xie would be filling board positions left open after PJM stakeholders declined to re-elect two members during the May Annual Meeting. (See PJM Stakeholders Reaffirm Board Election Results.) 

During his time at ISO-NE, Ethier filled three vice president positions — system planning, market operations and market development — between 2008 and 2024 and is now a principal at Stickney Brook Consulting, based in Florence, Mass.  

In a June 2024 announcement of Ethier’s retirement from the New England grid operator, ISO-NE President Gordon van Welie said, “Bob possesses a wide breadth of knowledge coupled with deep understanding of many aspects of the incredibly complex system we manage.” 

Xie has served as a professor at Harvard since 2024, before which he taught at Texas A&M University starting in 2010 and held previous roles at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a fellow and distinguished lecturer at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and has served as an editor for the group’s Transactions on Power Systems journal. 

Le Xie | Harvard John A. Paulson School Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

In an announcement of the selection, Nominating Committee Chair Jeanine Johnson recognized the widespread interest in PJM’s leadership. Nine state governors wrote to the Board of Managers in a July 16 letter requesting a formal, permanent role for member states in selecting two seats on the nine-member board. Virginia Energy Director Glenn Davis attended the July 23 MC meeting, along with a delegation from other states, calling for a new vision of how PJM and the states interact. 

“The Nominating Committee is confident that Bob and Le will make significant contributions as PJM board members,” Johnson wrote. “The Nominating Committee would like to acknowledge the interest of the PJM states in the activity of the Nominating Committee and appreciates the proposal of candidates. The Nominating Committee considered the proposed candidates, followed its process and code of conduct, and selected nominees best aligned with the position description adopted by the committee.” 

The governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia co-signed an Aug. 11 letter recommending recently retired FERC Chair Mark Christie and former FERC Commissioner Allison Clements to fill the positions. (See Pa., Va. Governors Float Clements, Christie as PJM Board Candidates.)  

“As governors from different parties, we have points of disagreement on energy policy, but we are united by the need to get PJM back on track to fixing the problems we collectively face,” the two governors wrote. “By working together with a diverse, bipartisan coalition of governors, we are committed to solving these collective problems and to ensuring that the citizens of our states and the region receive the affordable, reliable power that they deserve.” 

FERC granted PJM a waiver of the requirement that it take no more than one month to bring board candidates before the MC following a vacancy, a move the RTO argued was necessary to “ensure sufficient time to identify potential board members and to complete appropriate due diligence, including background checks, prior to announcing the proposed nominees to be considered and voted on by the Members Committee.” (See PJM Files Waiver Seeking Additional Time to Select Board Candidates.) 

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Green America Launches Campaign to Clean up Data Centers

A new campaign from Green America seeks to raise awareness of the impact on the environment from the rush to build data centers for artificial intelligence, calling on tech companies to use 100% renewable energy. 

The “Dirty Data: Stop Big AI From Polluting Our Climate & Communities” campaign also will push companies to listen to neighbors near data centers and related power plants about exposure to air pollution and related health conditions. Data centers already use electricity to power the equivalent of 7 million American homes and have contributed to higher power prices. 

“There is a lot of excitement about artificial intelligence and its potential to make all our lives better,” Green America’s Director for Climate Campaigns Dan Howells said in a statement. “But for all the benefits, AI comes with a big environmental cost. So, the choices companies like Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft make are critical. They could choose a new clean energy future and not return to a dangerous and dirty energy past. In order for the AI revolution to really be intelligent, it must be powered by renewables.” 

Demand is predicted to rise to between 165 and 326 TWh per year by 2028, which is enough to power 22% of U.S. households and could generate emissions the equivalent of driving a car 300 billion miles, or 1,600 round trips between the Sun and the Earth. 

The biggest tech firms have seen emissions rise this decade, growing on average 150% between 2020 and 2023 with 182% growth at Amazon, 155% for Microsoft, 145% for Meta and 138% for Google. All four tech firms made major climate commitments and pledged to get to net zero, but the growth in data center demand is threatening their ability to meet them. 

Amazon denied its emissions had risen that much, saying in a statement that its carbon intensity has declined regularly in recent years. Its absolute emissions have gone up, with its 2024 sustainability report saying direct emissions were up 6% from 2023, and indirect emissions from power purchases were up 1% on the year, in part due to higher electricity usage required to support advanced technologies.

Amazon reported that indirect emissions from other sources (such as work contracted for the firm) was up 6% from 2023 and was the largest share of its emissions at 74% of the total. The increase there was due to data center construction and fuel consumption from third party shippers, the sustainability report said.

Other industries that rely on data centers have seen emissions decline, with telecom seeing a drop to 94% of 2020 levels by 2023. 

The rising demand from data centers is driving utilities to keep coal power plants open that were slated to retire. But a go-to source of energy is natural gas, with plans for 20 GW of new facilities in the American South to serve tech companies. 

Another option is nuclear power, with Microsoft helping to reopen an old Three Mile Island plant and a deal with Meta to help expand the Clinton plant in Illinois. Google and Amazon also are investing in small modular reactors. 

Green America said its campaign is intended to mobilize its members and others to ensure AI becomes a force for climate solutions. That includes siting them responsibly; boosting efficiency in their operations, including with more efficient microchips; and running their operations on clean, renewable energy. 

The campaign also calls for more transparency, so that planned use of electricity and water to run new hyperscale data centers is better known. The sector needs to be honest about the scope of their impacts in order to be good neighbors and take responsibility for the pollution produced, Green America said. 

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Analysis Shows Varied Renewable Energy Workforce

A new analysis details some of the job growth and employment demographics connected to the proliferation of renewable energy in recent years. 

It is based on data that predates the second term of President Donald Trump, and his attempts to rapidly reconfigure the energy industry. The pattern highlighted by the authors — that the renewables workforce varies significantly between regions — is likely to remain relevant, but the observation that the wind and solar workforce is growing as a percentage of the energy workforce may change. 

The analysis was performed by one former and two current staff members at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which announced the results Aug. 26 with the caveat that the views expressed are the authors’ and not attributable to the Federal Reserve System or its Dallas branch. 

Wind and solar account for the majority of renewable energy jobs in most states, the authors write, but the percentage of each can differ sharply from one state to the next. 

Nevada is at one end of the scale, with solar accounting for 87% of the renewable energy workforce and wind just 2% — the largest and smallest percentages in any of the contiguous 48 states. 

North Dakota is at the opposite end, with solar accounting for 14% and wind 77% — the smallest and largest percentages within the Lower 48. 

The reasons are straightforward: Nevada has few wind turbines and North Dakota has little commercial solar capacity. 

The authors note, however, that while wind and hydropower energy development (and jobs) tend to happen where there is strong, steady wind or where large amounts of water flow over suitable topography, photovoltaic projects are not as clearly correlated to the strongest solar irradiance. 

State-level factors such as tax credits and energy standards produce pockets of solar development where sunlight is not necessarily strongest. 

Some of these employment trends are likely in line for changes. 

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported Aug. 20 that solar, storage and wind development already in the pipeline is expected to boost overall energy development to a new annual record in 2025. (See U.S. Could Gain 33 GW of Solar, 18 GW of Storage in 2025.) 

But BloombergNEF reported Aug. 26 that new renewable energy investment announced in the U.S. in the first half of 2025 dropped $20.5 billion or 36% from the same period in 2024, due to the Trump administration’s energy policy changes and tariff threats. 

The employment report was written by Garrett Golding, an assistant vice president for energy programs at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas; Xiaohan Zhang, a senior research economist; and Claire Jeffress, formerly a research analyst there. 

They note the importance of accurate employment statistics in targeting workforce development efforts for what is expected to be a period of strong growth for multiple sectors in the energy industry: “Though employment in these sectors is growing faster than the rest of the labor force, the number of qualified workers hasn’t kept pace.” 

But they also note the potential pitfalls in trying to compile such data. 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, counted just 8,000 wind industry jobs nationwide in 2022, while the U.S. Department of Energy tallied 125,000. 

This is because the BLS industry classification system predates wide use of wind and solar generation; there are nuances within the jobs themselves that can lead to misclassification; and DOE includes jobs in industries closely related to power generation, but BLS does not. 

In recognition of this, the DOE published the first U.S. Energy and Employment Report in 2016. The most recent edition, in August 2024, filled more than 200 pages with statistics and also served as a report card of sorts for the policies of the Biden/Harris administration as the presidential election neared. (See DOE Details Strong Job Growth in Clean Energy.)