As has been widely reported, power bills are going up for Maryland families. One key reason is that the latest capacity auction for PJM, the electric grid that includes Maryland and the rest of the mid-Atlantic, resulted in wholesale prices more than nine times higher than in previous years. That could translate into rate hikes as high as 24% for households. Maryland, in particular, does not have enough power generation to meet demand and not enough transmission lines to bring power from other places, leading to some of the highest rates in the region.
Leaders have publicly expressed shock and dismay at the news. They should drop the act.
The fact is these results are the clear and inevitable outcome of policy choices made at the state level over a period of years that have pushed essential, dispatchable power plants into retirement, blocked construction of new electricity generation resources because they didn’t comply with aggressive environmental policies, and opposed and derailed the essential transmission projects that could have reduced the impact of in-state resource retirements.
State policymakers, who hold full control over which generation resources are built in their state under the Federal Power Act, have explicitly encouraged the retirement of more inexpensive, dispatchable generation sources like natural gas and coal. Since 2018, Maryland has retired 6,000 megawatts (MW) of power and added only 1,600 MW to replace it.
As it stands, Maryland cannot meet its own power demand and already imports 40% of its annual electric needs from other states in PJM. Power demand in the state is also rising. In 2024 alone, the state saw a 4% increase in demand — with double-digit growth expected by 2029.
Now, in response to the result of the PJM auction, a difficult situation created by legislative policy choices is being exacerbated by worse ones.
Instead of making it possible to import more power to fill this looming gap, policymakers and state regulators have taken the opposite approach and acted to block transmission solutions because those same policymakers believe the cost is too high. PJM has identified 35 transmission projects waiting to be built in Maryland, with a total capacity of 1,338 MW, but staunch opposition has brought progress to a crawl.
Lawmakers have disingenuously blamed PJM for the challenges the state faces — criticizing the market for “not preparing” for the loss of generation that they have inflicted. The Office of People’s Counsel has been the worst offender by far, opposing nearly every recent transmission project in the state. The outcome of this is high prices that will now have to be paid by the very people they claim to be protecting.
Highly publicized efforts to plug the gap with renewable energy have faced staunch local opposition, even as lawmakers continue to count on massive projects like the Skipjack offshore wind facility that may never be built to provide essential power on a timeline that is simply impossible.
Grid operators offered Maryland policymakers possible solutions that take a more realistic approach. Earlier this year, PJM formally requested state lawmakers keep the H.A. Wagner Generating Station open until 2028, after the plant owner announced its decision to shutter the plant by 2025, citing aggressive environmental policies and economic reasons. PJM is also working to keep another conventional plant, Brandon Shores, open as late as 2028 to meet reliability requirements despite fierce opposition from lawmakers.
PJM has made it clear that generation and transmission are desperately needed, even if regulators and lawmakers are reluctant to admit it. And while a handful of essential new transmission projects will hopefully come online in the next few years — despite state opposition — they do not replace new generation.
Maryland has been able to avoid the consequences of its policy choices for so long because PJM’s other states had adequate generating resources and sufficient reserve margin to absorb those policies and still operate at or near record low wholesale power prices, like the two previous capacity auctions.
But now, for lawmakers seeing the outcome of their efforts, the consequences should finally be clear. Households across the state are faced with skyrocketing bills, Maryland is dependent on spending more for imported power and there is no relief in sight. It’s a clear and predictable outcome from policies that put ambitious goals ahead of operational realities.
Todd Snitchler is the president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association (epsa.org), which represents competitive U.S. power suppliers.