Emissions reductions

Clean energy generation has grown at a phenomenal pace in the PJM Interconnection market.  Data from PJM’s Environmental Information Services’ (EIS) tracking system shows that over the past five years, wind generation has increased almost 1,300 percent, from 500,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) in 2005 to 6,500,000 MWh in 2009. Solar power, which accounted for only 100 MWh in 2005, produced more than 81,000 MWh – a 3,000 percent increase.

This infusion of clean energy has reduced PJM’s carbon dioxide emissions per MWh of generation by 12 percent since 2005, created green jobs, and provided customers with low-carbon energy alternatives, according to the EIS data.

Markets unleash “ingenuity” and send the proper price signals for investment.  So says Senator John Kerry, D-MA, on the stump to drum up support for a tri-partisan climate change bill he is developing with Senators Lindsey Graham, R-SC, and Joseph Lieberman, I-CT.  Kerry is a strong advocate of creating a market-based program to limit emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.  He pointed to the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, which created a similar market-based program to cost-effectively limit acid rain-producing emissions of sulfur dioxide from power plants. “It works,” Kerry said succinctly of such market-based environmental programs.

The COMPETE Coalition welcomes Senator Kerry’s pro-market commentary, and invites him and his staff to review a joint statement by COMPETE and the Environmental Defense Fund underscoring the importance of competitive electricity markets for electricity as a complement to any market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.