FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 29, 2025
Contact: Lesley Paredes, lesley.paredes-hernandez@sierraclub.org.
Annapolis, M.D. - Today, regional grid operator PJM, coal plant owner Talen, energy regulators, and consumer advocates reached an agreement that the coal plants Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner will be included in future capacity auctions while running on reliability must-run (RMR) contracts. This agreement will help maintain grid reliability while new transmission is built.
In 2024, Sierra Club filed a complaint before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) against PJM for its exclusion of reliability must-run resources—including Wagner and Brandon Shores—from its capacity auctions while still charging customers to keep the two plants operational. This practice resulted in customers seeing energy price spikes as high as 883 percent and providing billions of dollars in excessive revenue to coal and gas plants in the region.
In 2020, Talen announced its plans to retire Brandon Shores by 2025, and in October 2023, Talen notified PJM that Wager would also be retired by 2025. In response, PJM requested to run the coal plants on reliability must-run contracts until there is sufficient infrastructure to retire the two plants without risking reliability.
In response, Sierra Club Maryland Chapter Director Josh Tulkin issued the following statement:
“Sierra Club’s goal is to transition Maryland from polluting power plants to clean, renewable, affordable energy. Any plan to continue burning coal is a setback for our health and our climate. However, we recognize the reliability concerns that have been created by an outdated planning system for retirement, and sought to achieve the least harmful outcome for Maryland ratepayers.
“The agreement will reduce impacts on Maryland ratepayers and ensure there is proper oversight of Talen's operations. Keeping Brandon Shores and Wagner in the capacity market will keep ratepayers from paying twice for these plants and prevent inflated capacity prices from creating a windfall for coal and gas generation. While this is a positive step, FERC must still act to ensure that all RMR resources are reflected in the capacity market going forward by acting on the complaint filed by Sierra Club and other environmental organizations last November. Moving forward, PJM must engage in better advance planning for fossil fuel plant retirements so it is able to meet reliability concerns using lower-cost, cleaner technologies, including battery storage and demand management.”