The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities took action to help Garden State ratepayers deal with the rising cost of electricity.
The board formally approved $100 utility bill credits announced by Gov. Phil Murphy and other top state Democrats in June — just days after rate hikes sent utility bills soaring for residents throughout the state.
These credits will reduce bills for residents by $50 in September and $50 in October.
Murphy called the credits "direct economic relief" when he first announced them as part of a $430 million initiative to relieve ratepayers across the state.
He said at the time there would be additional assistance for those most vulnerable and that funding for the initiative overall would come from the Clean Energy Fund, the BPU's share of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the Solar Alternative Compliance Payment Fund.
Democrats take aim at PJM Interconnection
Democrats have not shied away from pointing fingers at PJM Interconnection, the regional energy grid operator, for the rate hikes.
PJM is responsible for operating the electric grid for a huge swath of the mid-Atlantic and Midwest, stretching from New Jersey to North Carolina and from the coast into Illinois, covering about 70 million residents within its service area.
The state's utility rates went up about 17% to 20% at the beginning of June because electricity auction prices were higher as a result of greater demand and lower supply. These rate hikes were approved by the BPU in February.
The state already has programs to help with utility rate relief, including the Universal Service Fund, which receives about $67.65 million per year.
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Climate factors, AI data center demand stresses the grid
In addition to climate factors, the uptick in energy usage is also because of the impact of AI data centers on the energy grid.
The governor signed legislation requiring the BPU to conduct a study on the effects of data centers on utility use and expenses. The study is geared toward determining whether ratepayers are incurring unreasonable increases to support new transmission, distribution or generation facilities for the centers and calculate the portion of rates attributable to the demands of data facilities.
At a state Senate Legislative Oversight Committee meeting in March, state Sen. Andrew Zwicker, that committee's chair, put the energy usage of data centers into perspective by saying they already use 2% of the energy globally.
"The environmental impact of AI is remarkable," he said. "Training a single large language model like OpenAI's ChatGPT consumes approximately 1,300 megawatt hours of electricity, the same amount used by 130 U.S. homes in a year."
The BPU previously approved a plan to defer $30 from each monthly bill in July and August to be spread out over the course of the following six months, from September 2025 to February 2026.
It also approved additional assistance for low-income residents. It will provide $48.7 million for the Residential Energy Assistance Program to ratepayers eligible for winter-shutoff protections.
They will be applied as $25 credits over the course of seven months, from August 2025 to February 2026, for $175 in benefits in all. This program started last year as a one-time credit of $175 in August.
Katie Sobko covers the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: [email protected]
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ BPU expands utility bill credits as electricity rates rise
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