How Phil Murphy Caused New Jersey Electricity Prices to Soar

Sound energy policy is on the ballot in the Garden State this November

By Paul H. Tice. He is a senior fellow at the National Center for Energy Analytics. Excerpts:

"As of April 2025, the Garden State ranked No. 12 in the nation, with prices more than 15% above the U.S. average. This gap has widened further in the wake of the recent decision by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to approve an additional 17% to 20% rate increase for most utility customers starting in June.

"A decade ago, the outlook for New Jersey electricity prices was much brighter. The state was adding natural-gas generation capacity"

"By 2016, New Jersey achieved energy independence"

"Since electing Gov. Phil Murphy in November 2017, New Jersey has shut down all its coal plants, reduced its natural gas-generation capacity, and increased its reliance on intermittent wind and solar power." 

"offshore windmills—none of which have been completed to date, mainly due to cost overruns, despite the state’s generous financial incentives. New Jersey has also subsidized the rollout of solar power (mostly nonutility scale) even though the state experiences only 94 days with less than 30% cloud cover in an average year. The state ranks seventh in the country for small-scale solar power generation, with rooftop and utility-pole solar panels now ubiquitous."

"led to a 12% decrease in New Jersey’s electric-generating capacity since 2016. Over the same period, average residential power prices increased by almost a third"

"total committed daily PJM capacity decreased by roughly 20%, or 34.3 gigawatts, between June 2015 and June 2025." 

"PJM has replaced dispatchable coal and natural-gas generation with variable wind and solar facilities across its entire service territory. Subsequent interconnection bottlenecks have delayed many winning-bid renewable projects"

"In its last regular capacity auction, generation prices went up more than ninefold year-over-year."