“We’ve moved jobs out of state, and we’ve subsidized fossil fuel plants out of state—with ratepayer dollars,” says Mark Denzler, president of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association.
The Pritzker administration, which adamantly opposes entreaties by Denzler and power generators to relax deadlines for future plant closures, dismisses PJM’s analysis.
“The administration finds this study incredibly myopic and is confident that as we work to implement the goals of CEJA over the next two decades there will be enough clean energy options for consumers and the grid—it’s exactly why the bill incentivizes the production of clean energy and the market has already moved away from fossil fuel options on its own,” spokeswoman Jordan Abuddayeh says in an email.
She notes the relative paucity of new natural gas plants seeking approval throughout PJM’s multistate region. Wind and solar account for 95% of PJM’s development queue.
All involved in the debate acknowledge that the main wild card in meeting the administration’s decarbonization timeline without resorting to more fossil fuels is the evolution of battery technology. The ability to store electricity generated by intermittent sources like wind and solar for longer than the four hours or so now available would clear the way to closing more plants that can turn on when needed regardless of weather.
“The sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day, and the wind doesn’t blow 24 hours a day,” Denzler says.
A key challenge, PJM says, is replacing retired power sources with equally reliable substitutes. If such plants aren’t added in the Chicago area, electricity will have to be imported from other states.
The math is daunting. Last year, northern Illinois power plants had the capacity to generate 26,443 megawatts, according to PJM. That was after the retirement of 2,250 megawatts of capacity in the region over the past five years.
PJM expects another 9,661 megawatts to shut down between now and 2030, according to its report. Northern Illinois can expect to lose an additional 5,227 megawatts between 2031 and 2045, when CEJA bars the burning of any more fossil fuels for electricity.
During peak consumption both last year and so far this year, ComEd says it delivered about 21,000 megawatts. ComEd recorded its highest peak in 2011, when it had to provide 23,753 megawatts.
“Based on the additional clean, renewable energy expected to come online as a result of CEJA and the amount of power nuclear plants in northern Illinois can produce, we project that there will be enough generation at nearly all times of the year to continue to reliably meet our customers’ needs without importing power from other regions,” ComEd spokesman Paul Elsberg says in an email. “While it’s possible there will be times in future years when some generation will need to be imported to meet demand when it’s at its highest, this will depend on many factors—among them, how much solar energy, wind energy and battery storage is added to the power grid, and when.”
PJM notes that its estimates don’t include additions of wind and solar facilities under CEJA, which imposes surcharges on electric bills statewide to finance more renewable energy in Illinois. However, the analysis also doesn’t account for potential early closures of natural gas plants, the first group of which must shutter by 2030 under the law.
One such early retirement was announced last month. Houston-based NRG Energy said that next year it will shutter the 1,381-megawatt natural gas power plant in Joliet, one of the largest such plants in the state.
Another major gas-plant operator in the area, LS Power, has said it’s likely to retire some of its plants before 2030. Those facilities are “peaker” plants, which operate only during the highest-demand periods of the year, but which currently are critical to meeting peak demand.
Northern Illinois still has the largest collection of nuclear plants in the…
Read More: Chicago region will rely on power from other states by decade’s end