New Jersey’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) sets renewable electricity goals and determines which energy sources qualify as renewable. These programs can be a vital part of a state’s energy policy portfolio to drive the shift to renewable energy. But New Jersey’s weak RPS program cannot foster the rapid transition to clean, renewable energy in time to stave off the worst effects of climate change. The state’s RPS program is further compromised by New Jersey’s continued reliance on electricity generation from natural gas and nuclear power.
The New Jersey RPS program is undermined by its mediocre target combined with a weak portfolio definition that counts dirty power sources toward its renewable energy goals — including burning wood and municipal garbage as well as waste methane from landfills, sewage treatment plants and factory farms. It also includes renewable energy “credits” (RECs), which allow utilities to continue burning fossil fuels while buying credits for renewable power produced elsewhere, even outside of New Jersey.
New Jersey’s RPS program is barely average (see Table 1), largely because of the state’s slow adoption of clean energy sources like wind and solar and its inclusion of dirty energy sources and RECs in its RPS program. New Jersey can and must do better. It must strengthen its RPS program by expelling dirty energy sources, eliminating RECs and strengthening its target to achieve 100 percent clean, renewable energy within two decades.
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Table 1. Grading New Jersey’s Renewable Portfolio Standard |
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RPS provision |
Ideal RPS |
New Jersey RPS |
New Jersey grade |
Average state grade |
|
Target and time frame |
100% |
50% by 2030 |
C |
D (30% by 2026) |
|
Dirty portfolio and RECs |
No RECs, none of 6 dirty energy sources |
Allows RECs and 3 dirty energy sources |
D |
D (allow 4 dirty sources/RECs) |
|
Transition to renewable energy |
Shift to 100% by 2038 |
Projected to achieve 9% by 2038 |
F |
D (projected to achieve 31% by 2038) |
|
Overall |
|
|
D |
D |
New Jersey and the United States must rapidly shift to 100 percent clean, renewable power — produced from wind, solar and geothermal energy. The majority of U.S. electricity still comes from climate-destroying fossil fuels. In 2016, natural gas-fired power plants delivered 59 percent of the state’s electricity, and another 41 percent came from nuclear power plants. Less than 2 percent of New Jersey’s electricity came from clean renewables like wind, solar, tidal and geothermal energy.
Washington’s failure to act on climate change means that the states must take decisive action to transition to clean energy. Strengthening RPS programs is an important component of state climate policies and could dramatically increase the renewable power generation necessary to curb climate change.
State renewable portfolio standards establish a renewable power goal and target date and define which sources of energy count toward fulfilling the renewable electricity goals. All states allow solar and wind power, but they also allow a range of dirty energy sources such as municipal waste incineration or even coal. Almost all states allow utilities to purchase renewable energy credits (RECs), instead of generating renewable energy.
Iowa adopted the first mandatory RPS in 1983, and in 1999 New Jersey adopted a mandatory RPS. In 2018, New Jersey strengthened its RPS goal to achieve 50 percent renewables by 2030 and to mandate that 5.1 percent of the state’s renewable energy come from solar power by 2021 and 3,500 megawatts come from offshore wind power. By 2018, 29 states and the District of Columbia had mandatory RPS programs, covering utilities that deliver 56 percent of U.S. electricity sales.
Strong RPS programs can be essential parts of state renewable energy policy, along with energy efficiency standards, tax incentives and grants for installing renewable energy, and other programs. But renewable incentives can be undercut when states like New Jersey remain entrenched in natural gas and nuclear energy infrastructure.
Food & Water Watch evaluated New Jersey’s RPS program based on the strength of its target, the inclusion of RECs and dirty energy sources, and how well it was projected to shift its energy mix to wind, solar and geothermal power sources over the coming decades.
Strong RPS policies would set a target of 100 percent renewable electricity generation from only wind, solar and geothermal energy, which is imperative to avoiding the worst effects of climate change. The planet is poised to emit more carbon dioxide (CO2) than what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conservatively estimated would give us only a two-out-of-three chance of avoiding a catastrophic 1.5 degrees Celsius rise in temperature. As the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere exceeds crucial thresholds, the effect on climate change could be sudden and potentially irreversible. Reducing these emissions by about 20 percent every year would drive emissions to near zero within 20 years.
New Jersey’s phased-in RPS target requires electric power providers to generate 50 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2030. This target is too weak to halt or reverse climate change.
Food & Water Watch identified six dirty “renewable” energy sources as well as whether states allowed RECs that must be expelled from RPS programs. New Jersey’s RPS allowed three dirty energy sources — waste incineration, waste methane and wood-burning power — as well as RECs. New Jersey’s RPS did not include other common RPS dirty sources, but it must shed waste incineration, waste methane, wood-fired power plants and RECs to clean up its RPS program.
New Jersey’s RPS included burning waste methane from landfills, sewage treatment plants and animal waste, such as manure digesters (burning the methane released from factory farm manure). This methane is often referred to as biogas. Biogas is primarily methane and is essentially indistinguishable from fracked natural gas, with many of the same problems. Burning biogas or methane releases greenhouse gases as well as pollutants including nitrogen oxides, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide.
New Jersey has at least 10 landfill gas facilities. These polluting operations often primarily generate power for the facilities themselves — they burn methane to power the landfills. For example, much of the energy generated by the Atlantic County Utilities Authority’s LFG facility powers the site’s operation.
New Jersey allows garbage incineration to count toward its renewable energy goals. Incinerating trash produces toxic air emissions and contributes to climate change. Incinerators emit nearly 14 times more mercury than coal per megawatt, and garbage incineration may produce more greenhouse gas emissions per megawatt than some fossil fuels.
New Jersey is home to five municipal waste incinerators that combined burn about 4.8 billion pounds of municipal waste annually. The Newark Covanta garbage incinerator is the largest in the state, accounting for nearly half of the state’s waste incineration. The garbage incinerator — and the hundreds of trucks that deliver garbage every day — has polluted the predominantly lower-income community of color for decades. The facility violated New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection air permits over 150 times in the five years between 2013 and 2017.
New Jersey’s RPS portfolio included wood-fired power plants. Processing, transporting and burning wood all produce greenhouse gas emissions and burning wood can release more emissions than coal. Forestry companies manufacture wood pellets for power plants from tree branches, from waste wood and even from harvesting whole tree.
Allowing RECs under New Jersey’s RPS permits utilities to burn polluting fuels while purchasing distant renewable energy credits, potentially diminishing the in-state environmental benefits of renewable energy. New Jersey has been meeting its RPS goals with almost as much “renewable” energy from garbage incineration RECs as from solar power. In 2018, New Jersey began revising its REC program, but it is unclear what changes — if any — will be made to the program.
Most states would not meet their RPS goals through wind, solar and geothermal power alone, and almost no states are on track to deliver 100 percent clean, renewable power by 2038. New Jersey has barely installed any wind or solar power facilities and is projected to reach only 9 percent renewable energy by 2038 from wind, solar and geothermal energy alone — well below its insufficient target of 50 percent by 2030 and not enough to curb climate change.
Robust mandatory RPS programs can be an important part of state policies to encourage the shift to renewable energy. New Jersey must raise its target goal, expel dirty energy sources and eliminate renewable energy credits to ensure that the policies can promote a swift transition to genuine renewable energy. New Jersey must raise its RPS goal to 100 percent renewable energy and eliminate RECs, garbage incineration, wood-burning power and waste methane from landfills, sewage treatment plants and factory farms from its eligible RPS energy sources.