Dupage Policy Journal

It’s like flying an airplane while trying  to build it. That’s what critics of Illinois’ aggressive effort to shift  to renewable sources for making electricity have long said

That airplane crashed faster than even they  expected. Electricity bills and the risk of brownouts are jumping  quickly in Illinois, and it’s not just green energy skeptics saying so.

The most significant warning came recently  from the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, which  oversees the power grid for Illinois and much of the Midwest. Their  warning was contained in a recent forecast by the North American  Electric Reliability Corp., a regulatory authority that monitors risks  to the grid, and was summarized by the Washington Post as follows:

Southern Illinois  is among the most vulnerable places in the country heading into the  summer, according to a newly published forecast by the North American  Electric Reliability Corp., a regulatory authority that monitors risks  to the grid.

The area, along  with large parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and other states  linked to the regional grid, has been put on notice in the forecast that  it is facing a “high risk of energy emergencies during peak summer  conditions.” A major reason is that some of the coal plants that  regulators assumed would keep running for another year or two are  instead coming offline. Some plant operators are choosing to shut down  rather than invest in upgrades for coal plants that do not fit with  states’ and the federal government’s long-term goals for clean energy.

“We are seeing  these retirements occur at a faster pace than expected,” said Jim Robb,  chief executive of the regulatory authority. “The economics aren’t  great, so coal plant operators are saying ‘uncle.’” 

This map from the MISO report shows high risk areas in red, which include all of Illinois except the north.

Meanwhile, electricity costs are already  spiking in much of the state, not just Southern Illinois, which local  news sources have covered extensively.

For example, News 25 in Peoria reported that central Illinois consumers “will pay double for  energy starting this month, as a deal mitigating costs for many  communities expires, with no new contract in sight. Communities like  Peoria, Morton and East Peoria all participate in municipal aggregation  programs.”

And the City of Springfield already asked Illinoisans to begin cutting back on consumption in order to reduce the risks of brownouts.

That estimate of approximate 50% increase in energy costs was borne out in recent op-ed by the president of Ameren, which supplies electricity to much of  Southern and Central Illinois. The “typical residential customer in the  Ameren Illinois service territory is expected to see a 54% increase in  their energy bill starting in June of 2022,” he wrote. “The actual  impact will depend on the amount of energy used.”

How can this have happened? Illinois for  decades had a competitive advantage thanks to reliable and relatively  inexpensive electricity.

Multiple factors have converged to drive up  prices, everyone seems to agree. They include inflation, the conflict  in Ukraine, high natural gas prices and the closure of coal-fired  electric power plants.

Unquestionably, however, the rush to green  energy is playing a major underlying role in rising prices and capacity  shortfall. Both Illinois and the federal government put a target on the  back of the whole fossil fuel industry, stifling investment therein and  quickening the closure of traditional power sources. And renewable  sources just aren’t ready to fill the void.

Lawmakers and regulators simply blew it  when matching demand against supply. As stated in the MISO report quoted  above, a major reason for the brownout risk is that some of the coal  plants that regulators assumed would keep running for another year or  two are instead coming offline. Some plant operators are choosing to  shut down rather than invest in upgrades for coal plants that do not fit  with states’ and the federal government’s long-term goals for clean  energy.

Power production just isn’t sufficient to  reliably meet expected demand. External factors like the war in Ukraine  do not explain the current capacity shortage.

CEJA, Illinois’ Clean Energy and Jobs Act,  requires 100% renewable energy production by 2050, and was correctly  called by its sponsors “the most aggressive, most progressive climate  bill in the nation.”

It only passed last year, so CEJA’s defenders say it is not to blame for today’s mess. However, the writing was on the  wall long before. It was clear that Illinois was headed in the direction  CEJA took it at least since Gov. JB Pritzker made its general goals  public upon taking office. It has been a similar story nationally.  President Joe Biden promised in his campaign that, if he was elected,  “No more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. No more drilling  including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill  period. It ends.”

What’s the result of policy and talk like that?

The Financial Times answered that in a column this weekend. Investment in energy production  from fossil fuels dropped drastically, and it can’t easily be cranked  up again. Biden, at least, has changed course, but it’s too late. He  “has pleaded with the country’s oil producers to open the taps and stem  the surge,” says the FT. “But those calls…have largely gone unheeded as  the industry insists its drilling spree days are behind it.” Far fewer  drilling rigs are at work and higher prices have not spurred further  investment. That means higher prices for natural gas, one of the primary  fuels for power plants.

It’s just not possible to turn on the  spigot quickly. That takes years, and investors need more assurance on  long-term investments than a temporary political reaction.

It’s the same situation for electric power  plants. There’s no quick fix for Illinois’ now apparent shortage.  Pritzker has shown no concern, and basically shrugged off the issue when asked about it. There’s little he can do in the near  term even if he tried. It’s also possible that he really doesn’t care. A  majority of the public thinks high energy prices are deliberate as a means to  choke off fossil fuel consumption, and there’s no doubt that’s true of  many green energy supporters. Pritzker’s silence only increases that  suspicion.

Won’t those high energy prices and  brownouts shrink the economy? All the better, as many on today’s left  see things. “De-growth” is a movement in itself among many green  activists, as cheerily described in The Nation.

A longer term solution is available by  loosening Illinois’ legal mandate to shift to 100% renewable energy. The  Illinois Manufacturers Association is among many who support that  change, and they have long criticized the state’s policies on  renewables. “Illinois has continued to fail miserably to provide enough  renewable energy, and we’ve told them repeatedly you can’t shut down  coal and gas plants unless you have enough energy to backfill it, and  that’s what happening now,” says Mark Denzler, the association’s  president.

That loosening could include an end to Illinois’ moratorium on  construction of new nuclear plants. Today, nukes supply about 55% of  Illinois electricity, but they are all scheduled to be out of service by  around 2050. Getting new ones built, however, would require a federal  government effort to streamline the morass of regulatory and litigation  hurdles nukes face, which make their construction nearly impossible.

So far, however, we’ve seen no interest in  any of that from the Pritzker Administration or the ruling majority in  the General Assembly. For now, it appears they haven’t yet recognized  that the airplane they were trying to fly while building already  crashed.