MARYLAND (WBFF) — After passing in the legislature, the Utility RELIEF Act is waiting on Governor Wes Moore’s signature. While the bill is set to save Marylanders, on average, at least $150, state Republicans and officials with BGE say there is still more that needs to be done to address energy supply concerns.
“No one can sit here today and tell us how much our rate payers are going to save from having more generation in the state of Maryland as this bill will bring about,” said Delegate Marc Korman, the Chair of the Environment and Transportation Committee. “No one can sit here today and tell us how much rate payer savings this bill will bring, even though it will, from changes to the large load tariff and many, many other provisions.”
The massive bill includes numerous provisions, including changes to the EmPOWER program, how utilities can recover costs from customers and how the state will manage data centers. The legislation also includes $100 million from the Strategic Energy Investment Fund to establish an annual bidding process for local clean energy projects.
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“What is indisputable, is that the projects that are ready to go right now, the ones that would bring costs down the fastest, are also the ones that are under direct attack from the Trump-Vance Administration,” Governor Wes Moore said on Monday.
An administration official said the legislation’s new competitive bidding program will incentivize a rough estimate of 200 MW annually, which will help power about 50,000-70,000 homes.
“Any generation is good generation, and Maryland needs it desperately,” said Brittany Jones, Vice President of Governmental and External Affairs for BGE.
“However, we still have more work to go,” she added. “We need dispatchable generation, which is more your nuclear, your natural gas generation, so that during the winter peak periods, we have access to the power that Marylanders need, and we’re not just dependent on the wind or the sun in those type of instances, with renewable sources.”
While Jones said they “applaud the Governor and the presiding officers for passing legislation that does provide some bill relief for our customers,” she said increasing generation will help lower customer costs, especially with rising demands from data centers and electrification.
“We need to address the supply portion of the bill, that is where customers are experiencing the most hardship,” Jones said. “We saw the supply rates increase more than 800% in just a year. The only way that’s going to come down is if we increase generation, not just in Maryland, but also in PJM. What we’re dealing with is a supply and a demand imbalance.”
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Additionally, Republicans have been critical about the bill.
“Everyone who’s taking an honest look at this, regardless of your political orientation, knows that we don’t produce enough energy in our region and certainly in our state to keep up with our energy demand needs,” House Minority Leader Jason Buckel said.
“There’s nothing this bill’s going to do to increase nuclear coming or expanding here. There’s noting it’s going do to incentivize natural gas to come here. We’re going to continue to fall farther and farther behind our regional competitors,” he added.
In response to other provisions of the Utility Relief Act, a statement from BGE, PEPCO and Delmarva Power earlier this week said, “it is important to ensure that well-intended policies do not create unintended consequences for customers over the long term. Policies that limit how utilities plan, invest, and recover costs can make it more challenging to maintain the safe, reliable energy system that customers depend on every day and may ultimately increase costs or delay critical infrastructure investments.”
The bill makes changes to the rate-making process, preventing utilities from filing reconciliation requests that would impose additional charges on Marylanders. A change many lawmakers and advocates argued was necessary amid rising rates.
“The bill also requires utilities to base their rates on their actual historic costs, not on forecasts of future costs,” House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk said.
“When we have to do large scale infrastructure projects, we are looking to borrow money at the cheapest, affordable rate possible, because ultimately, it’s our customers that pay that money back. So if you pass policy measures, that are just too restrictive in the way that we’re able to do rate proceedings and borrow capital, in the long run, that really hurts customers, because it becomes more expensive to pay that debt back,” Jones said.
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