Exactly how much profit is Constellation Energy making on the generation plants it got from Baltimore Gas and Electric seven years ago in the move to deregulate electricity?
How much lower would electricity rates be if the plants were still owned by BGE and regulated by the state instead of being able to charge what the market bears?
What are those plants worth, anyway, now that electricity prices have zoomed up?
We're about to find out. The Public Service Commission and its chairman, Steven B. Larsen, are days away from hiring experts to analyze Maryland's deregulated system in the greatest detail ever.
Which suggests the game is not over in seeking relief from the 70 percent increase in electricity prices seen by BGE customers. Which ought to make Constellation more than a little squirmy.
Larsen doesn't mess around. When he was Maryland's insurance commissioner, his hired guns ferreted out the fact that CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield chief executive William L. Jews would make up to $39 million from the nonprofit organization's merger with WellPoint Health Networks. The revelation effectively killed the deal.
Expect interesting headlines in October, when Larsen's latest posse of consultants delivers findings on electricity just in time for a General Assembly session. The smoking gun may not be as hot as in the CareFirst case, but it's well worth uncovering.
The PSC, authorized by legislation by Eastern Shore Republican Sen. E.J. Pipkin and others, is asking all the right questions in very pointed ways. It's looking forward - at whether re-regulation makes sense for Maryland, at what other states are doing to cope with high electricity prices, and at whether BGE and other utilities should get back in the business of generating megawatts. But it's also looking back.
For one thing, it revives the issue of "stranded cost" compensation - the $528 million that Constellation demanded and got from BGE ratepayers when it took over Calvert Cliffs, Brandon Shores and other generation plants previously financed by BGE ratepayers.
Constellation argued that the loss of a guaranteed income from BGE customers (since BGE had the option to buy elsewhere) would cause the generators to plunge in value. The opposite happened.
The economy grew and so did demand for juice. Nobody built new generators, and Constellation's efficient coal and nuclear plants can now charge BGE customers what the market bears instead of passing along the lower costs.
