(The Center Square) – Provisions of the “one big beautiful bill President Donald Trump enacted will impact the energy industry.
The bill scales back tax incentives for certain types of energy like wind and solar. Before the bill’s enactment, Gov. J.B. Pritzker warned that will lead to clean energy job losses and will mean higher consumer costs.
“We’re not going to be able to meet the needs of industry and we’re going to see higher prices for consumers. We already see higher prices,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker blamed that partially on grid managers.
“And their inability to bring on all of the projects that have actually already been built but need to be plugged in, interconnected into our grid and they’ve fallen way behind,” Pritzker said July 1 in Peoria.
In May, PJM said costs are going up because existing energy supply is being pushed off of the system before replacement resources are in operation.
“Supply is decreasing due primarily to state and federal decarbonization policies and some economics,” PJM said. “In order to shift blame for these price spikes, PJM is being accused of an unwillingness or inability to connect new renewable resources to the grid.”
Tuesday, President Donald Trump said wind is too expensive.
“The other one is the solar, those big solar fields. They’re taking our farm land. Our farmers are like mortified by it. They hate it. It’s very inefficient,” Trump said.
Trump said wind and solar are too expensive and rely too heavily on taxpayer subsidies. The law he enacted focuses more on natural gas and clean coal energy production.
“But we don’t want wind and we don’t want solar because they are a blight on our country and they hurt our country very badly and smart countries don’t use it,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting.
America’s Power, a partnership of industries producing electricity from coal, said the Trump administration has been working to reverse what they called “dangerous policies” that are forcing coal plants to retire prematurely.
“The Department of Energy’s report is a stark reminder of the urgency of these challenges, and we look forward to continuing to work with the administration in addressing them,” the group said.
Monday, the U.S. Department of Energy released a reliability report saying retirements of “firm” electricity generation increases risk of power outages 100 times in 2030.
“Modeling shows annual outage hours could increase from single digits today to more than 800 hours per year,” the DOE said. “Such a surge would leave millions of households and businesses vulnerable. We must renew a focus on firm generation and continue to reverse radical green ideology in order to address this risk.”
Jim Talamonti contributed to this report
