By Mark Jaffe, EUCI energy writer
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill – making good on a campaign promise to deal with rising utility bills – on her first day in office issued two executive orders aimed at freezing rates and creating more generating capacity.
“I promised the people of New Jersey bold action to lower utility costs and, today, I’m delivering,” Sherrill said in a statement. “Trenton will no longer accept the status quo and kick the can down the road while New Jersey families pay higher bills.”
Between June 2023 and June 2025, the average New Jersey residential electricity bill jumped more than 33%, and the average electricity price for all customers, including commercial customers, rose nearly 30%, according to Sherrill’s Executive Order No.1.
“Prices are expected to continue to rise due to systemic issues within the federally-regulated regional power market,” the order said.
The rise in electricity bills is being spurred by several factors, including the escalating cost of transmission and distribution infrastructure, volatile natural gas prices and the skyrocketing price of the future supply of reliable, wholesale electricity in the regional PJM market.
New Jersey is one of 13 states, along with Washington D.C., which gets wholesale power from the PJM Interconnection. The regional grid operator has seen the cost of generation through its capacity auctions soar.
The PJM settling auction price rose from $28 a megawatt-day in 2024 to $289 a megawatt-day in 2025. In the December auction, it hit a cap of $333 megawatt-day.
That cap was imposed after governors from five PJM states, including New Jersey, protested the rising wholesale electricity price. In the summer of 2025, New Jersey was hit with some of the highest electricity price increases of all the PJM states.
Executive Order No.1 directs the state’s Board of Public Utilities (BPU) to consider pausing or modifying any moves by utilities that could raise bills and to use existing funds to help offset a bill increase coming in June.
“Given the extent of the affordability crisis, BPU shall consider pursuing a pause, abeyance, or modification of the schedule governing any proceedings in which electric distribution utilities seek approvals for rate increases or cost recoveries to the extent permitted by law,” the order said.
In August 2025, the BPU approved a “Residential Universal Bill Credit.” The $100-million program provided a $50-a-month credit to the bills of all 3.9 million New Jersey residential electric customers served by the state’s four electric utilities.
The order extends the bill credit program to address upcoming rate increases.
In addition, the order directs the BPU to conduct a study looking to “modernize” the utility business model in ways to reduce costs and address affordability.
Executive Order No. 2 declares an “ongoing electricity affordability crisis in New Jersey constitutes an emergency” and moves to increase electricity generating resources in the state – including solar and battery storage in the short-term and nuclear power in the long-term.
“Despite President Trump’s declaration of a national energy emergency and the Department of Energy’s recent finding that the Nation’s power grid will be unable to meet projected demand in the coming years, the federal government has aggressively pursued policies that are counterproductive to energy affordability and grid reliability,” the order stated.
“More power means lower costs,” the Sherrill administration said in a statement. “We must move quickly as the federal government cuts support for energy production.”
The push for in-state generating capacity comes as PJM capacity costs skyrocket. The order said that the July 2025 PJM capacity auction resulted in $16.1 billion in new costs for PJM ratepayers, including $2 billion to New Jersey families and businesses.
The order initiates and accelerates programs to bring online thousands of megawatts of new utility-scale and distributed solar and battery storage generation. It also establishes a Nuclear Power Task Force.
The BPU was directed to identify permit reforms to more rapidly deploy projects and to require utilities to report to the BPU on data center requests so the state can get a better handle on future demand.
The order also calls for the development of a “virtual power plant” program to be administered by electric distribution utilities.
“Governor Sherrill is meeting the moment,” Katie Mettle, New Jersey state lead for the industry trade group Advanced Energy United, said in a statement. “These executive orders are tackling peak demand, unlocking customer-sited resources, and speeding deployment of solar and storage.”
Processing…please wait
