the clash continues over who and what's to blame for energy prices that are expected to spike in the state this summer On Friday representatives from all of New Jerseys electric utilities were asked to testify at a joint legislative hearing where they were asked whether they'd be willing to get back into the energy generation business and about their role in sounding the alarm on the process that sets prices Senior correspondent Joanna Gaggus reports as part of our ongoing series under the dome exploring the state government and its impact on the people who live here We recognize that our customers have faced and are facing rising energy costs due to multiple factors They include wholesale energy supply prices higher costs driven by the PJM capacity auction and extreme weather conditions that have driven up electricity demand The four utility companies that distribute gas and electricity to homes and businesses across the state addressed a joint session of the legislature on Friday as part of a continued investigation into why energy prices are set to spike in about a month and what they can do about it It's no surprise New Jersey has serious resource adequacy issues Recent and anticipated PJM capacity auction results local generation retirements and the urgent need for new transmission projects and the prospects of additional new large load customers have highlighted these concerns In layman's terms PJM the company that sets energy prices across 13 states through auctions set a t-fold spike in cost for electricity in the last auction That's about to make customers bills spike by about 17 to 25% depending on your energy provider And with no new energy sources like wind energy coming online in the state plus a nuclear generator shutting down in the last decade the state is struggling to meet its energy demands Republicans continue to blame Governor Murphy's energy master plan and held the companies to account on that matter Did any of you make it clear to policy makers in the state of New Jersey that shuttering generation was going to spike prices yes I heard from each and every one of you that you're prepared to help advise the state as to appropriate solutions Why haven't you done that already it's no secret to us that solutions do come with a fair amount of political debate that the companies are somewhat reluctant to get directly involved in We'd prefer to be professionals giving advice not being partisans giving device advice to the best of our ability One temporary solution has been proposed by the Board of Public Utilities or BPU that's asked the utilities to defer increases in payments until October when energy prices come down due to cooler weather Ultimately we're just kicking the can down the road a little bit to give a little a little little rate relief uh during the summer months The four companies PSEG Atlantic City Electric JCPNL and Rockland Electric said they're still developing a proposal for what that deferment will look like but Democrats suspect there was collusion in the PJM auction and press the utilities on that issue And I'd really like to know who sent the memo around let's everybody bid 10 times higher than last year If that doesn't smell of collusion I don't know what does I don't think we heard about it until all the kind of public noise started happening at BPU When were you all as voting members aware that there was an increase coming based on the last actions of PJM i believe the auction results were made public last July The companies made it clear they don't have a vote in the auction Lyall Rawlings owns a solar company in Flemington and says the rules guiding the auction are really to blame The design of this auction is a single clearing price mechanism What that means is that there's all kinds of biders A lot of them are low prices and then a few of them are very high prices but they take the highest price and give that to everybody That is pure profit taking What it should be is pay as bid what you pay what you bid in is what you get Um the the uh auctions that are like that work much better and that could dramatically lower this price And while the legislature presses for answers Governor Murphy has asked FK the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to investigate the auction process in Trenton I'm Joanna Gagas NJ Spotlight News Under the Dome is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting a private corporation funded by the American people