Here we go again. It’s time for a new NJ Energy Master Plan update, and you’ll have to forgive our cynicism, but the previous master plan, far from ushering in a bright era of affordable, reliable and clean energy, brought mainly woe for the citizens and ratepayers of Cape May County.

Everyone agrees that the 2019 New Jersey Energy Master Plan needs to be replaced, but getting to such a document has proved remarkably difficult. The history of this update to the guiding document for New Jersey’s energy policy is often forgotten, but instructive to review. It so clearly demonstrates the lack of a consensus around which the state can build public support, support necessary for what will be a long and at times painful transition in our energy profile.

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If the state once again prioritizes fantasy over function, we’ll all be left in the dark – and paying more for it.

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The first update of the 2019 plan was billed as the 2022 Energy Master Plan. When that date was clearly not realistic, public hearings were promised but never held in 2023. Then the plan was rebranded as the 2024 Energy Master Plan. A draft plan of sorts, more of a draft presentation, was presented to the public in March 2025.  It generated a great deal of controversy. It is now doubtful that a plan, and not just an update of the PowerPoint slides from March, can be issued before Gov. Phil Murphy leaves office on January 20, 2026. Is there better evidence that consensus eludes us?

In the March draft presentation, a slide on next steps still clung to Murphy’s goal of 100% clean energy by 2035. It speaks of staying “laser focused” on “no regrets policies” regarding renewable energy generation. Really? Is it possible that the person who wrote that lives in a different reality than most of us? There is a great deal of regret on the part of elected officials who find themselves on the ballot and who must face angry electricity ratepayers.

The offshore wind initiative was critical to the state’s 2019 plan for providing electricity that would reliably and affordably satisfy demand. It still had a prominent place in the March draft presentation.

With no wind farm yet operational and with opposition in several quarters building against offshore wind, Murphy gave a pivotal address at Rutgers in February 2023. In it he promised six actions he would later initiate through executive orders:

• The goal of 100% clean energy by 2050 was to be altered to 2035. 
• Zero-carbon emission heating and cooling equipment was targeted to be in 400,000 homes by 2030. 
• The state would work with the gas industry to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. 
• The state would embrace the Advanced Clean Car II Rule requiring that all new vehicles sold in New Jersey by 2035 be zero-emissions. 
• Funds would be allocated to help local governments transition to all-electric vehicles. 
• The state would introduce resilient flood mitigation rules for land use and development, the Resilient Environments and Landscapes (REAL) regulations. Those rules are pending adopting right now. 

In October 2023 the wheels began to come off the strategy when Orsted withdrew from its commitment to the Ocean Wind offshore wind farms. The state’s response was to direct the BPU to accelerate new solicitations. The partnership behind Atlantic Shores began to fall apart, with no activity by the state to reconcile its aggressive goals to an emerging new reality in which offshore wind played at best a minor role.

While BPU officials like to talk about positive strides made in solar generation, the reality is we face an electricity pricing crisis and mounting public backlash. The state is increasing the amount of electricity it must purchase from out-of-state suppliers.

Adding new significant complication to the mess is an unexpected new demand source in the form of massive data centers driving up demand at rates no one predicted.

Supply continues to lag soaring demand. An expert panel pulled together by the state’s own regulators, the BPU, said we have not yet hit high-enough price points to encourage investment in large-scale new supply. Residential ratepayers are loudly protesting the rising costs being passed on to them from both supply and distribution companies. A strategy that relies on higher price points is probably dead on arrival with the state’s elected officials.

On Aug. 29, a coalition of 70 municipalities released a letter calling for a new state strategy, one with an emphasis on in-state natural gas and nuclear capacity, “rather than renewables or reliance on PJM imports.” Only two communities in Cape May County were signatories to the coalition letter, Dennis Township and Wildwood Crest. Yet it captures what we all hear every day as the energy conversation circulates in the county. 

What the coalition objects to most is the attempt by the Murphy administration to get Murphy’s energy goals codified into law before he leaves office. No better example could be found to demonstrate the hubris displayed to date by Murphy and his agencies.

The signatories of the coalition letter are not wrong to call the current state energy policy “a self-inflicted wound.”

Into this environment the state will introduce a new master plan. The people of Cape May County, and all of New Jersey, deserve an energy plan that works in the real world, one that is reliable and affordable. If the state once again prioritizes fantasy over function, we’ll all be left in the dark – and paying more for it.