New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy recently urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking that FERC direct the commission’s enforcement unit to launch an investigation of the PJM Interconnection’s 2024 Base Residual Auction for the 2025/2026 Delivery Year and examine whether market manipulation occurred.
Murphy made his request in a letter he sent to FERC Commissioners.
“I believe the exorbitant price increases” in PJM’s most recent capacity auction “may have been subject to market manipulation,” he said in the letter.
“I specifically urge FERC to investigate potential market manipulation and determine the extent to which nay such manipulation may have resulted in higher capacity auction prices that are being passed on to retail electricity customers in the PJM market, particularly in New Jersey.”
PJM Response
In response to a request for comment from Public Power Current, Jeffrey Shields, Senior Manager, External Communications, at PJM, said that “New Jersey has insufficient generation in-state to meet its needs, and has to make up this difference through imports.”
Shields said a seven-year-long effort by New Jersey “to fill this gap with offshore wind has failed to deliver any results whatsoever, and consumers are now paying the price for this failure. “
PJM “has not seen evidence that supports a finding of market manipulation in the 2025/26 capacity auction, but we take such allegations very seriously,” Shields said.
“The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Office of Enforcement is the right place to address such a concern, and PJM will follow any directives we receive from FERC,” he said.
