Rep. Jeff Van Drew has asked the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to launch an audit of Atlantic City Electric to find out why electricity bills have doubled, tripled and, in some cases, quadrupled and quintupled for customers.
Van Drew made the announcement at a panel discussion at the Atlantic County Institute of Technology in Mays Landing Oct. 8 that included other members of Congress and representatives from various industries that would be affected by extreme boosts in power costs.
“Something is very wrong in South Jersey, something is very wrong with Exelon,” Van Drew said, referring to the parent company of ACE.
The congressman said there has been an investigation of the rate increases by the state Board of Public Utilities, but he characterized it as “insufficient.”
Van Drew said he has not gotten a satisfactory explanation for the higher electricity bills. He said the response from ACE was that the summer of 2024 was very hot and the demand for electricity was high.
He then deferred to meteorologist Nick Pitman, who said 2023 was a cooler-than-normal summer, and that 2024 was quite similar to 2022. Pitman said electricity bills surged in 2023, essentially doubling, despite there being only about half as many 90-degree days as in the previous year.
An average summer electricity bill was more than 2.4 times higher in 2024 than in 2022, even with a cooler 2023. In addition, he said, the temperature gauge at the Atlantic City Marina recorded zero 90-degree days in 2024 and only two in 2022.
“We have also had the coolest water temperatures in years,” Pitman said.
He said in response to a question by Van Drew that 2024 was “not a spectacularly hot summer.”
Van Drew said the increase in charges was also coupled with the installation of smart meters, but so far he has not been able to get answers from ACE.
“A good company would say, ‘Yes, we will work with you,’” he said.
He gave the example of a Franklinville resident who sent him her one-month bill that was $433 last year and in 2024 was $1,269, for an increase very much higher than the 20% rate increase cited by ACE.
“The numbers don’t add up,” he said.
Echoing earlier comments from Van Drew, Haddon Antonucci, Van Drew’s policy director, said that there were some “bad policy decisions made” by both the federal and state governments and some “serious discrepancies” in ACE billing.
Antonucci said a major driver of the enormous rate increases was the collapse of New Jersey energy independence. He cited the closing of a number of coal-fired electricity plants that were not replaced.
Instead, he said, the state has been favoring alternative energy sources, such as wind, that he called “aggressive decarbonization plans” that are not sustainable.
The excessive bill increases, he said, could not have come at a worse time due to New Jersey’s energy dependence. “We are only at the beginning of the New Jersey energy crisis,” he said.
Van Drew said representatives of the BPU and ACE declined to attend the panel discussion.
In attendance were Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11), representing Staten Island, who said policies at the state and federal levels are crushing seniors, families and small businesses. She said the government is subsidizing certain kinds of power and ignoring traditional sources.
Rep. Mark Alford (MO-4) said his constituents are “suffering with some of the same issues.”
“This war on fossil fuels has not done a good service to our nation,” Alford said. “We need to protect the environment, but not when energy workers are shaking down people at their front doors. That is not America. That is not New Jersey.”
Other speakers included Rep. Ben Cline (VA-6), Little Egg Harbor Township Mayor Blaise Scibetta, Allen Carter, president of the New Jersey Farm Bureau, Audrey Lane, president of the Garden State Initiative, and Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy at the Cato Institute.
Van Drew sent a signed letter to FERC Oct. 8 requesting the audit of ACE.
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
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