BALTIMORE — Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE) raised rates for customers in June, affecting residents and businesses in Baltimore City as well as Baltimore, Harford, Cecil, Carroll, Frederick, Howard, Montgomery, Anne Arundel, Prince George’s and Calvert counties. These price hikes impact both electric and gas costs in BGE’s territory.
In a press release published in January of this year, BGE explained that the average monthly cost for a combined gas and electric customer would be increasing by $26.06 per month. BGE attributed the price increases to a number of causes such as increased delivery costs, supply reduction from the retirement of fossil fuel-powered generators and the Maryland General Assembly’s changes to the EmPOWER Maryland program.
EmPOWER is funded by the five largest power companies in the state, including Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, Potomac Electric Power Company and BGE. These companies are mandated to offer incentives that reduce greenhouse emissions and increase energy efficiency. To fund these incentives, the companies are allowed to charge their customers a fee on electricity. For residents powered by BGE, this fee increased in January from $0.00899 to $0.01028 per kilowatt-hour, or $1.16 per month for the average customer.
BGE claimed: “The increase in this fee is the result of the Maryland General Assembly changing the program’s goal from reducing electricity use to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and a mandated accounting change in how BGE collects and disburses the program’s funds.”
The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel (OPC) released a statement that explained the price increases in greater detail. OPC is the state agency that advocates for residential utility consumers and ensures that utilities are reliable, safe, affordable and conform to Maryland’s environmental and climate goals.
According to OPC, BGE’s rates have risen above what would be reasonably expected to cover inflation, decreased supply and increased demand. In addition, there is a large unpaid balance for EmPOWER programs that is costing customers in interest. The Maryland General Assembly has reduced the interest rate on this balance and has mandated that utilities begin paying down the principal balance to save consumers in the long run, but this does lead to higher costs for customers right now, OPC said.
OPC and BGE have also disagreed about BGE’s handling of the Baltimore Peninsula, a multimillion-dollar project to build residences, offices, retail space and the associated electrical infrastructure on the Patapsco River. The Baltimore Peninsula project was started by Baltimore-based Under Armour in 2016. The project has faced a number of setbacks from Under Armour scaling back its involvement to the COVID pandemic crushing demand for office space and other investors backing out.
In January, David Lapp, head of the OPC, published an opinion piece in The Baltimore Sun accusing BGE of offering “disingenuous statements about the causes of bill increases.” The company’s aggressive spending on infrastructure was the cause of the price increases, Lapp said, which were generating profits for BGE’s parent company, the Illinois-based Exelon.
In May, the General Assembly passed the Utility Transparency and Accountability Act, which only needs to be signed by the governor before it becomes state law. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to rein in the rising costs for Marylanders inside BGE’s territory.
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Tax Moore will fix it!
If SMECO or WES MOORE has anything to do with any of it…considered yourself screwed. SMECO customers many of them had bills DOUBLE JUST LAST MONTH. What is being done..not a darn thing. Just handing out excuses after excuses. It’s a shame that everyone has to struggle to even survive now days. It’s actually pretty sickening