Pennsylvania has the most diverse energy portfolio in the country, but it is losing its thermal generation of electricity capacity as some of those power plants have gone offline or closed over the years.

That’s a significant concern expressed this week by state Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Loyalsock Township, chairman of the Senate Environmental & Energy Committee, who sat down with Sun-Gazette staff members.

Yaw said he has serious concerns when he looks at the Commonwealth’s state of energy production, especially with Pennsylvania producing one-third of all electricity for the PJM Grid, which supplies electricity to 13 states and the District of Columbia, serving a population of 65 million.

“Energy is so critical and Pennsylvania is a major player in the energy market,” said Yaw, who said he considered Gov. Josh Shapiro’s energy plan comparable to “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Shapiro has some plans, he acknowledged, but they do not address the fundamental issue of thermal generation.

“Pennsylvania is a major player in the energy market,” he said. “We need to be building thermal generation capacity and we are not addressing that.”

Turn the lights on. They work. No worries, right?

Not so fast, warns Yaw, of the 23rd district, representing five counties in the state’s Northern Tier with Lycoming County having the most population at just over 113,000.

Acknowledging the seriousness of the issue is a challenge to get across to people, and that it is a bit like Chicken Little warning about the sky is falling, as demand outpaces supply. Yaw said he has serious concerns about the state having enough power generation.

“This is a really difficult subject to get the public to pay attention to,” Yaw remarked.

“The bottom line is that we are in a position where our electric grid is fragile,” he said. “People go to their light switch and the lights come on and it’s like okay the lights come on and it’s like ‘what’s the big deal?'”

Yaw explained the situation at hand.

People think there’s a lot of energy sources, right?

Well, currently, there are two means of creating electricity for power – thermal and non-thermal. Thermal – as discussed – comprises any way to make steam. It can be gas, nuclear, coal or oil, while non-thermal consists primarily of wind and solar – or renewables.

The advantage of thermal production of electricity is that it is available around-the-clock.

It doesn’t matter whether the sun shines, whether it is raining or night or day. When the power is needed at 3 a.m. on a cold winter night or early morning, that power does not come from wind turbines or solar panels.

That much was proven last month.

In late January, the state recorded the coldest day of the year.

In those hours over 69% of the base load of energy at the PJM Grid was from fossil fuels, and nuclear power – which made up about 26%, according to research provided by Yaw’s colleague in the General Assembly, state Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, representing the 84th House District, and Lycoming and Sullivan counties.

“That means 95 % of our energy was coming from fossil fuels and nuclear energy on the coldest day of the winter,” Hamm said, during his recent visit to the Sun-Gazette. “Less than 2% came from renewables.”

During his conversation with the newspaper editorial board, Yaw agreed.

“For the most part, it is from power plants using thermal means of generating electricity – and the state’s been retiring many of these plants without a plan to replace the power that was generated by them with a comparable type of replacement, Yaw said.

It is a matter of Economics 101 – the law of supply and demand affecting the price.

“When people talk about electric bills going up, they will keep going up, he said. “It is scary where they might go. Dealing with the electric grid – it scares me. I think we have a serious problem coming and we should have been addressing it five years ago or more.”

OFFLINE PLANTS

Over the past few years, the state has closed Cheswick, right outside of Pittsburgh.

A year ago Homer City Generation Station, which was the largest coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania, producing about 2,000 megawatts, roughly enough power for about 1.5 million homes, closed.

Originally, a projection by PJM was – by 2030 there would be a retirement of 40,000 megawatts of power.

“In about that same time period, we would have an increase in demand for another 40,000 megawatts. That’s 80,000 megawatts of need, but what is being done to make it up. The answer, unfortunately, is virtually nothing,” Yaw said.

The projections then pushed that time period outward to 2030 to 2032 for this need, he added.

“Then, there was a report that maybe by 2028 demand would start to exceed supply or be close,” he said.

CLOSER STILL

As of the latest figures, that Yaw said he saw a few weeks ago, the grid could start to experience serious problems by 2026-2027.

“That’s not very far away,” Yaw warned.

SOLUTIONS?

The most logical replacement for a thermal power plant is a combined cycle gas fire generation facility, but that takes three to five years to build.

It would be power produced from a gas turbine with additional power generated from steam created by capturing waste heat from the gas turbine exhaust.

That’s fine but one of the biggest problems for such combined cycle gas fired power plants is the equipment backlog is in the neighborhood of two to three years, Yaw observed.

“The only reasonable solution we have considering the position we have put ourselves in is to stop the retirement of some of these older power plants,” he said. “We have got to keep them online and we have got to make a serious effort on how we are going to replace them.”

Yaw said legislation known as the Grid Stabilization and Security Act was introduced, which would encourage companies to come to the commonwealth to build power generation facilities.

Moreover, to fund the power plant projects a development fund (Baseload Energy Development Fund) was copied from the state of Texas, a state which put $5 billion into it.

“That was so overprescribed that they put another $5 billion into it,” Yaw said. “They have a $10 billion incentive for people to come there and build power generation,” he said.

“That is something we are going to try and do.”

REGIONAL GREENHOUSE GAS INITIATIVE

Former Gov. Tom Wolf tried to put the state in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in 2019.

Since then, there has not been a thermal fired electric generation plant built in the Commonwealth, Yaw noted.

As generators speak to Yaw they discuss the proposed RGGI tax “hanging over their heads” and tell him – “We are not investing one nickel in Pennsylvania.”

Yaw said that is the opposite of what is needed.

“We need to start building in Pennsylvania,” he added. “The numbers are not in our favor. I wish we could do things differently, but unfortunately that is the position we find ourselves in.”

In fact, about two weeks ago, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative abrogation bill (S.B. 186) passed out of the Senate and is now in the House.

The Commonwealth Court has ruled the governor can’t pursue RGGI on his own, but must have cooperation from the legislature, Yaw said.

What the former governor did was he ordered the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to write regulations complying with the framework of the initiative.

Those regulations are, technically, on the book.

“We are saying based on this court decision …. wait a minute … you can’t do that. Abrogation means simply nullifying those regulations.’

Yaw stressed it is not an environmental issue

” It has nothing to do with the merits of RGGI,” he said, continuing, “it has to do with the process of how the former governor tried to put us in RGGI and the courts said ‘you don’t have the authority to do it that way.'”

HAMM SUPPORTIVE OF RGGI REMOVAL

“Pennsylvania should also immediately abandon its entry into RGGI, which will hinder natural gas and coal productions and increase utility bills by nearly 40 %,” Hamm said, adding he will “continue to urge Gov. Shapiro to take the state out of RGGI and disregard his new plan, PACER, which is still a costly carbon tax under a different name.”

Hamm said SB 186 is removing Pennsylvania from RGGI.

“It should be moved to be voted on immediately so energy companies will move forward with investing in Pennsylvania and unleashing Pennsylvania natural gas and coal,” Hamm said.

NONPARTISAN FACT-FINDING

Yaw touched briefly on the extreme increase in demand as a result of “data centers.”

He referenced Microsoft and its relationship to pay to restart Three Mile Island.

“It is fine and great for jobs in that area,” Yaw said.

However, he noted, “Microsoft is going to buy all of the power. It does nothing for the grid.”

Likewise, Amazon has a deal with the nuclear power plant at Salem Township near Berwick, as they are buying part of the power produced by the plant.

“Not all of it but it is taking power away from the average homeowner,” Yaw said.

The state had the perfect scenario for power with 32 % coal, 32 % gas and 32 % nuclear leaving about 4 % for renewables.

The mix now is 50 % gas, about 25 % nuclear, 15 to 18 % coal, which leaves all the renewables such as hydro, landfill gas and wind and solar. Wind and solar are less than what they were a decade ago in spite of the promotions, government subsidies it has not registered. “Fossil fuels are going to be around,” he said. “You can’t build a solar farm without fossil fuel. You can’t build a windmill without fossil fuel.”

Yaw referenced hearing about battery storage. “It’s great,” he said. “There may be all these things down the road. But that is the problem – they are 10 or 15 years down the road.

The last nuclear power plant that came onlinetook 20-25 years to build.

“We’re talking about 2026,” he said.

“The PACER program is basically RGGI all over again. It has gotten virtually no acceptance anywhere,” Yaw said.

Yaw said upon speaking with PJM, he told them they are their own worst enemy.

In the past month, they have been under an emergency generation order, he said. “Nobody knows about it, but internally it is called emergency generation. It is pedal to the metal – with the cold temperatures – you need to be prepared as part of the PJM capacity to produce.” Three weeks ago, there were 145,000 megawatts being used, which was a record, Yaw said.

Projections were for the day 140,000-megawatts needed, and how they made up the extra 5,000 megawatts was shared by Yaw.

“I was in Erie and talking with those operating their water and sewage treatment plant,” Yaw said.

The Erie plant has a huge backup generation facility in case the power ever went out.

“They got a call asking them to “go offline and use your emergency generator to produce the power,” he said. “That is how they patch things together. That is how it is done. When we are doing that and they are running diesel generators, well, it worked.”

Another example was given by Yaw.

Homer City plant is being torn down and they are constructing a plant to produce 5,000 megawatts, but all of the power will stay on-site, serving a cadre or pods of data centers, according to Yaw.

“It is great for the jobs, but it is 1 megawatt to the grid. That is what we are facing.”

As for the claim that the commonwealth produces too high a level of emissions, “they are down 45 % since 2005,” Yaw contends.

“Our emissions in the PJM Grid in the last five years since COVID are down 9 % without any government regulations,” he said.

Instead, he added, it is a result of efficiency of the businesses.

Another issue with the reliability of the grid has to do with transmission lines. State policies have a huge impact.

“We had a couple of hearings with Ohio, one in Pennsylvania, and I was in Columbus hearing about energy production,” he said. “Ohio raised a question. Illinois decided their policy was they were going to go basically all green, closing down all the coal fired power plants, and gas powered plants and go with renewables and nuclear. That would not produce enough electricity to serve the needs of Illinois and they would have to import it and do that they would have to upgrade the high voltage transmission lines,” Yaw said.

The place where they had to do that was in Ohio. But those in Ohio asked why would Ohio ratepayers be paying for transmission lines because of a decision made in Illinois?

“We also are experiencing the same thing in Pennsylvania,” Yaw said, referencing a power plant outside of Baltimore, a primary power plant for the city known as Brandon Shores. It is a coal-fired power plant, which the owner had been talking to PJM and were going to convert it to oil, which upset Yaw, who thought it could have been converted to run on natural gas. A year ago, they decided they would close it, signing an agreement with the Sierra Club to close it. The closure is supposed to be in June. The solution was a 70-mile Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project at a price of $424 million.

The reason it is important is transmission lines have to be upgraded to ensure there is power and some of those transmission lines are in southeastern Pennsylvania. About 20 % of the cost will fall on commonwealth rate-payers, a policy decision made in another state that affects Pennsylvanians.

To deal with the further impending issues related to energy in Pennsylvania, Yaw said efforts are under way to establish an Independent Energy Office (IEO).

Much like the Independent Financial Office, that was established by the executive branch under whoever the governor was and provides the legislators with independent facts and figures that are not partisan.

“I think the IFO has fulfilled that and we would like to try and duplicate that with an IEO – which would be non-partisan, middle-of-the-road, and give facts and figures about what should be done and let the people decide what we are going to do with them.”

OPPORTUNITY NOT TO BE SQUANDERED

“Pennsylvania has an incredible opportunity to lead the way toward American Energy Independence, economic prosperity, and securing our national security because of our vast reserves of natural gas,” Hamm said. “Those opportunities will only be realized by having predictability on permitting, regulatory reforms to cut the bureaucratic red tape and getting the infrastructure (pipelines) in place to get Pennsylvania gas to market,” he said. “Pennsylvania is second in the nation in natural gas production behind Texas and third in the nation in coal production,” he said. “The opportunities are limitless, and Pennsylvania should lead the way. It is time we unleash Pennsylvania natural gas and provide energy security for our Commonwealth and the U.S., he added.

“It is time to be practical and pragmatic about the situation and abandon RGGI, PACER, and any additional carbon tax plans. Let’s embrace Pennsylvania energy – not work against it.”

“The next couple of years are going to be intriguing in the energy field,” Yaw said.