1.0Citizens Utility Boardhttps://www.citizensutilityboard.orgrich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="FAmDkoudYh"><a href="https://www.citizensutilityboard.org/blog/2025/07/31/cub-q-and-a-another-capacity-auction-more-bad-news-so-what-happened/">CUB Q and A: Another capacity auction, more bad news–so what happened? </a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://www.citizensutilityboard.org/blog/2025/07/31/cub-q-and-a-another-capacity-auction-more-bad-news-so-what-happened/embed/#?secret=FAmDkoudYh" width="600" height="338" title="“CUB Q and A: Another capacity auction, more bad news–so what happened? ” — Citizens Utility Board" data-secret="FAmDkoudYh" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript"> /* <![CDATA[ */ /*! 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You can learn more about PJM’s capacity market and this year’s price spike in our previous blog, and by visiting our Help Center.  Sadly, there’s more bad news. Prices are going up yet again–next June. Let’s break it down.  So what’s happening to ComEd bills? The price spike we are experiencing now was set in stone last July. That’s when PJM held its auction for 2025/2026 to determine what we pay for reserve electricity, or capacity. It was bad enough when prices reached record highs for that auction, but PJM just set another record for its 2026/2027  auction, which will go into effect on June 1, 2026. The auction price jumped 22 percent, increasing from $269.92 per Megawatt-day to $329.17 per MW-day. That doesn’t mean your bill will go up 22 percent–capacity is only one component of ComEd’s supply price for electricity–but it does mean your bill will increase.* ComEd initially said bills will go up by about 2 percent next year–on top of the spike consumers are feeling now–but we won’t know final estimates until sometime next May.  Did anything change since the last auction? After last year’s devastating auction results, advocates sprung into action. Environmental organizations filed a complaint at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) about how PJM made ratepayers pay extra for otherwise retiring coal plants, but then ignored them in the capacity auction, falsely reducing supply. Consumer advocates supported that complaint and added our own, where we argued, among other things, that PJM wasn’t counting the contribution of many renewables either. PJM changed its rules for the better in response to these complaints. Gov. Shapiro of Pennsylvania also brought a complaint to FERC, saying that the normal price cap of $500 per MW-day should be lowered until the interconnection queue starts working again. (Remember, a major factor for these high prices is PJM’s interconnection queue delay). PJM and Gov. Shapiro agreed on a regional price cap of $329.17 per MW-day for the next two auctions. While there were other parts of the agreement that raised consumer advocate concerns, we supported the price cap.  The most recent auction, setting prices that will take effect next June, hit the price cap negotiated by Gov. Shapiro. PJM did an analysis of what the clearing price would have been without the new price cap, and holding all else equal, the price cap saved consumers an estimated $2.9 billion. As a consumer advocate, we are relieved that there was a price cap that protected ratepayers from even worse outcomes, but are still frustrated that we got here in the first place. Why is the capacity price going up even more? Significant increases in demand, combined with a restriction in supply (the frozen interconnection queue), cause prices to go high.  The biggest contributor to the price spike in this auction was large loads, such as data centers. They […]https://www.citizensutilityboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/26-27_BRA_PPT-Inside-Lines-Body-Image.png1073501