Peco may be forced to pick between fossil fuels or renewable energy before its latest plan expires in 2025

Last month, Peco filed its four-year energy purchase plan for approval from the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission, promising to obtain electric supply at the “least cost over time.” Its current purchase plan, or default service supply plan, is set to expire May 31, 2025.

The bulk of the electricity that Peco sells to its 1.7 million customers is generated by fossil fuel.

On Monday, March 4, Energy Justice Advocates, an environmental advocacy coalition, challenged Peco’s request with its own Public Utilities Commission filing, or a petition to intervene, calling the electric company’s plan “business-as-usual” and “inadequate to significantly reduce dependency on fossil fuel.”

“We are in the middle of a climate emergency and have no more time for foot-dragging or half measures,” said Eric Cheung, acting executive director of the Clean Air Council, a coalition member.

The filing is designed to force the PUC to take a side in the fossil fuel vs. renewable energy battle.

“We are taking a major step of participating in this complicated regulatory proceeding to urge the Commission to demand better,” said Wendy Greenspan, co-chair of POWER’s People’s Energy Plan Campaign. The six-member group Energy Justice Advocates includes POWER Interfaith, Vote Solar, and Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania.

“We are in the middle of a climate emergency and have no more time for foot-dragging or half measures.”

In a statement Tuesday, Peco said: “Peco’s plan, filed with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC), outlines how the company will purchase electricity for customers who are not purchasing their electricity from a competitive supplier for the period from June 1, 2025 to May 31, 2029.

“Peco will work to ensure the electricity is purchased at the lowest price possible and in a way that will guard against price volatility for our customers,” the statement read.

“As part of our broader commitment to driving the transition to cleaner and greener energy for our customers and communities and to support the growth of solar generation here in Pennsylvania, we are proposing to double our purchase of solar Alternative Energy Credits,” Peco said.

Peco, the state’s largest electric and natural gas delivery company, maintains that the PUC is concerned about safe, reliable, and rate stable electric service and that the company is required to buy the least costly energy, a move that favors fossil fuel.

Calling that view dangerously short-sighted considering the effects of climate change, POWER Interfaith, a coalition of more than 250 congregations in Philadelphia, the Lehigh Valley, and Lancaster, has created its own energy plan.

“Peco must take responsibility for the fact that the electricity they buy to serve us is a major contributor to the climate crisis,” said the Rev. Michael Caine, co-chair of the POWER Interfaith Board. “The climate crisis threatens public health, community well-being, and the economy.”

POWER Interfaith unveiled its People’s Energy Plan last year during a summer rally at City Hall, urging three changes to Peco’s procurement-planning process: that they enter into more long-term contracts, involve stakeholders in the procurement planning, and become a leader in renewable-energy usage.

“Peco must prioritize delivering cheap abundant renewable power to our homes and businesses now rather than relying on dirty and antiquated fossil fuels,” Cheung, of the Clean Air Council, said in a statement Monday.

In 2004, then-Gov. Ed Rendell signed the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act, the state’s renewable energy policy, which required that a certain percentage of electricity sold to retail customers come from renewable sources.

Currently Pennsylvania ranks 45th in renewable energy generation with only 3% of the commonwealth’s total energy coming from renewable sources. New Jersey ranks 46th and Delaware 49th.

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Though Peco has publicly supported state legislative efforts that call for 5% of all electricity sold in the state to come from solar energy by 2030, the Pennsylvania’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act currently requires electric suppliers like Peco to purchase 8% of its power from renewable sources, including only 0.5% of solar energy generated within the state.

Peco met those benchmarks in 2023, but renewable-energy advocates say it is too low.

“The only thing preventing Peco from supplying more affordable solar energy to its customers is its antiquated procurement process that is biased towards traditional fossil-fueled power plants,” said Thomas Schuster, director of Sierra Club’s Pennsylvania Chapter on Monday.

During his campaign for Pennsylvania’s top post, Gov. Josh Shapiro vowed to increase the renewables targets in the AEPS to 30% by 2030. In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy issued an executive order last year that called for 100% of the electricity sold in that state be derived from clean sources of electricity by Jan. 1, 2035.

“The climate crisis threatens public health, community well-being, and the economy.”

“Renewables provide some of the cheapest and most resilient energy in the market,” said Kartik Amarnath, mid-Atlantic regulatory director of Vote Solar. “Fossil fuels have destroyed our life-sustaining ecosystems and pushed hazardous pollution, aging infrastructure, and incredibly volatile energy prices onto communities.”