OPC seeks cooperation from Maryland’s utilities to realize benefits of the Utility RELIEF Act
BALTIMORE – Maryland’s investor-owned electric utilities should take immediate action to maximize the benefits to residential ratepayers of the recently enacted Utility RELIEF Act, the Office of People’s Counsel said in a letter to the companies today.
“The RELIEF Act intends to reduce transmission rates by requiring utilities to participate in a regional transmission organization, like PJM Interconnection, LLC,” Maryland People’s Counsel David S. Lapp said. “That requirement eliminates the unnecessary added profit transmission utilities currently receive as a result of their voluntary participation in PJM, but customers won’t see any savings from the requirement—more than $20 million each year—until the added profits are removed from transmission rates approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).”
OPC’s letter asks owners of qualifying transmission lines—Baltimore Gas and Electric, Pepco, Delmarva Power & Light, Potomac Edison, and Transource Maryland—to take affirmative action now to avoid unnecessary and potentially protracted contested proceedings before FERC.
The utilities can submit a filing to FERC to remove the extra profit incentive, OPC’s letter notes. If the utilities don’t voluntarily file to remove the incentive, a complaint against each company would be necessary, consuming significant State resources. A complaint proceeding would also likely delay any change in the company’s rates—and associated relief for ratepayers. The relevant provisions of the RELIEF Act become effective on July 1, 2026.
“Transmission costs get a lot less attention than capacity costs,” Lapp said, “but they account for roughly 15 percent of a residential customer’s bill, about the same as current capacity market costs. The State has limited influence over these federally regulated costs, so this provision of the Utility RELIEF Act provides a unique and straightforward way to reduce this part of customers’ bills.”
Transmission infrastructure—the high-voltage system that delivers electricity from power plants to local utilities—is a growing and increasingly significant driver of higher electricity costs for Maryland households and businesses. OPC’s March 2026 report, PJM Transmission Cost Impacts on Electricity Customers in Maryland, found that transmission rates for Maryland utilities Baltimore Gas and Electric, Pepco, and Delmarva Power & Light have increased by a factor of five to six since 2010.
The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel is an independent state agency that represents Maryland’s residential consumers of electric, natural gas, telecommunications, private water and certain transportation matters before the Public Service Commission, federal regulatory agencies and the courts.
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