Back in June, Gov. Phil Murphy quickly assembled a press event to announce a $430 million fund to help ratepayers deal with the burden of rising electricity rates. Everyone would get a nonrefundable $100 toward electricity bills, with people in low- and moderate-income households getting an extra $150.
A bit more has emerged about the details of how and when this money will be available.
The Board of Public Utilities approved a plan Aug. 13 to reduce monthly electricity bills by $50 in both September and October. Unlike the $30 credits that the state’s four distribution utilities are applying to bills in July and August, the state funds will not have to be paid back. They will, however, be received just as the utilities begin collecting the repayment of their credits by adding $10 each month for six months, starting in September.
At the same meeting, the board approved other programs that extended the promised $175 in bill credits to qualified low- and moderate-income ratepayers. Those credits will be applied in equal installments over seven months, from August to February 2026.
The hope of the large number of Democratic elected officials who turned out for Murphy’s gathering, announcing the state’s largesse, was clearly that allocating $100 for each ratepayer would take the sting out of rising supply rates applied to higher summer use. That may get lost in the noise.
The September bill in South Jersey will be higher — and, for some, significantly higher — because of the supply rates and the summer use. Remember that the bills look back a month at electricity use, not forward. The bills will show the $50 credit from the state, but they will also show the first of the $10 charges from Atlantic City Electric as the utility begins to collect the credits from July and August.
Low- and moderate-income households may see more, but the average ratepayer will still see a bottom-line bill that is probably higher than it was for the same month in previous years.
“This should be helpful for people, but in no way solves the problem. I hope this helps some people get over the hump. This is a very difficult time,” said BPU Commissioner Zenon Christodoulou.
New Jersey ratepayers, who were already paying some of the country’s highest rates, were hit with 17% to 20% increases in supply prices on June 1. That was a result of a capacity auction held by grid operator PJM Interconnection in July 2024. According to experts, the recent July 2025 auction is likely to add an additional 5% to the electricity supply costs in June 2026. And, regulators say they expect that process to rise further, based on the capacity auction scheduled for July 2026.
In the midst of this chaos in the supply rate, the BPU has yet to rule on a request from Atlantic City Electric for roughly an 8% increase in the distribution rate for bringing that expensive electric power to the ratepayer’s home. The utility says that increase will allow it to fund investments in the local grid and recoup the cost of the smart meters already distributed across the service area.
No one is talking about any imminent relief for the rising costs of electricity. The supply-and-demand problem faced by New Jersey is likely to continue for the next several years, as elected officials and power generators seek large-scale investment to support development of new energy supplies.
A symbol of the difficulties that confront the state was also present at the BPU meeting, when the board approved an order terminating the state’s contract with Atlantic Shores for offshore wind development, which once promised 1,509 megawatts of electricity. Federal uncertainty was said to be an underlying cause of the change.