Electricity

Maryland lawmakers are buffeted by powerful business interests and concerns about rising consumer electricity bills as they consider a plan to overhaul the power market. Sound familiar? That was 1999, and they chose to deregulate the industry. A decade later, the same scenario is playing out, but many of those same lawmakers have come to the opposite conclusion - that the state should move back to a regulated market. The about-face in the General Assembly reflects deep-seated fears about constituents being subjected to ever-increasing utility bills.

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.

Advocates of alternative-fuel vehicles would seem a unified bunch of tree-huggers, bound by their determination to wean the world's automobiles off fossil fuels. But there's a red-hot fight brewing in the green-car world. Proponents of the two most-hyped technologies - hydrogen fuel cells and plug-in electric hybrids - are squared off in an increasingly bitter fight. They are vying for publicity, manufacturer acceptance, favorable regulation and, especially, financing for research and investment in infrastructure and marketing.

The rigging of the electricity marketplace to enrich power companies and executives looks even worse than we thought. Just as Maryland was getting shocked by higher kilowatt prices, grid managers have allowed extra profit for generation outfits such as Constellation Energy, parent of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. The bonus, whose magnitude was revealed Friday, might eventually cost the typical BGE household $10 a month or more and add hundreds of...

Gov. Martin O'Malley said yesterday that eliminating the link between power companies' profits and the amount of energy they distribute - a plan recently approved for Pepco, the Washington-area utility - could be one of the most effective strategies for reducing electricity bills across Maryland. Officials with that company say they could begin incentive programs to help consumers conserve energy as early as this fall, and the idea of "decoupling" is likely to be a major issue at the energy summit O'Malley will hold in Annapolis today.

Now that Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. has the go-ahead to raise electricity rates by 50 percent next month, Marylanders also have a choice: Pay the full increase right away or spread it out under a deferral plan. What to do? Area economists think the decision is pretty clear: "It's a no-interest loan, everybody should take it. ... It's a no-brainer," said Richard P. Clinch, director of economic research at the University of Baltimore's Jacob France Institute. "It's basically free money.

First there was Eastalco. The Frederick County aluminum refinery closed in late 2005 because local electricity had gotten too expensive to operate the facility profitably. Six hundred jobs disappeared. Now high megawatt costs threaten other Maryland manufacturers, which have shed nearly 40,000 jobs since 2000, according to the Labor Department. No other major employer seems close to shutting down. But in some cases local plants are losing business to regions with cheaper electricity or looking less competitive for winning future expansions.

Electricity bills for customers of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. are projected to rise by a less-than-expected 47 percent - or about $550 for the year - starting in June, based on bids the utility received from wholesale energy suppliers this week. The latest projections reflect a nearly yearlong decline in wholesale energy prices that will trim the size of a 72 percent rate increase that was supposed to take effect last summer. Lawmakers temporarily capped the rate rise at 15 percent in response to consumer anger over the increase, which came after customers enjoyed six years of rates capped at below 1993 levels.

Don't do it, Mid-Atlantic states. Don't accept the electric grid's offer to settle your complaint. Don't let the dirty secrets that have begun to emerge get covered up. Expose possible abuses found by an internal watchdog at PJM Interconnection, the regional grid manager. Identify the generation company he said reaped $20 million in "excess payments" over two weeks. Find out who might be getting away with similar shenanigans. Here in Central Maryland we just got a 72 percent electric-price pop. We want as clear a view of our deregulated electricity market as Californians got of theirs after the Enron debacle, and this case looks like it'll help.

Hoping to inject more competition into a part of Maryland's energy market, Gov. Martin O'Malley asked the Public Service Commission yesterday to determine whether the state's program to provide electricity for the poor could use its market power to secure lower rates. O'Malley said in a letter to PSC Chairman Steven B. Larsen that he believes that aggregating the purchasing power of the 93,000 low-income clients of Maryland's Electric Universal Service Program could save them about 8 percent on their rates.

Focus on efficiency, not nuclear plant Sunday's Sun editorial claims the Constellation Energy Group-Electricit? de France deal will help ratepayers, in part because EDF might construct a new nuclear reactor that will increase Maryland's supply of electricity ("PSC's power play," Sept. 20). The cost of a new nuclear reactor is in the billions, and the electricity generated by the reactor may not be available for a decade. The problem is that ratepayers are suffering high energy costs now. The best and most immediate solution to our high energy costs is investment in energy efficiency.

Constellation unit to be reviewed over complaint HARTFORD, Conn. - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has agreed to hear Connecticut's complaint that two energy companies received more than $50 million for electricity that was never delivered, the state said Tuesday. State officials, including Gov. M. Jodi Rell and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, said that Canada based-Brookfield Energy Marketing Inc. and Constellation Energy Commodities Group of Baltimore collected payments for electricity that it never delivered.

The computer in my toaster might be more powerful than the one that guided Apollo 11. But half a century after Robert Noyce launched the cyber age by inventing the silicon-based integrated circuit, computers are curiously scarce in one huge and critical part of daily life. When power goes out in your neighborhood, Baltimore Gas & Electric has no idea until somebody picks up a phone and tells it. BGE still has to send out meter readers to figure out bills. Households are clueless about daily electricity price fluctuations.

Constellation Energy Group told Gov. Martin O'Malley Friday that it would give ratepayers a break and cancel a lucrative golden parachute package for its chief executive as part of a settlement that could help to ensure regulatory approval of a deal with a French utility. But O'Malley said Constellation's counteroffer to his June proposal does not go far enough. It is the latest development in talks that began behind the scenes but escalated into a public tussle. O'Malley has sought to wage a public campaign, laying out his case in an editorial and a Webcast to try to wring concessions from Constellation.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s proposal to install customer smart meters to promote conservation is (at 450 pages) a complicated plan that will require close scrutiny by the Maryland Public Service Commission. But the essential idea - to enable the utility to track electricity and gas consumption on an hourly basis and set prices accordingly - is not only smart but vital for Maryland's energy future. Under BGE's plan, a smart meter would be installed in every business and home. Unlike ordinary meters that are manually inspected every month, such devices keep constant track of how much energy is being used and can wirelessly transmit that information to a central office.

Matthew Simmons, Texas author and investment banker and the guy who bet oil will hit $200 a barrel next year, feels pretty good. Oil has doubled to $70 recently as the economy shows signs of life, and "prices do seem poised for the next leg up," he says on the phone. "By sometime a year or two from now, we'll look back and say, yeah, prices were really cheap." Perhaps the leading proponent of the idea that oil is running out, Simmons probably won't win his bet, made with New York Times columnist John Tierney.

The state of Maryland this spring announced that one of its public agencies would save up to $15 million a year on its electricity bill as a result of buying cheaper electricity in the competitive market.Gov. Martin O'Malley was rightfully ecstatic, proclaiming that "the state is leveraging its electricity buying power to provide a much needed measure of price stability and protection." Maryland taxpayers should be heartened by the governor's pronouncement. States across the country are facing significant budget challenges, so any opportunity to save taxpayer money and buy cheaper electricity should be welcomed.

Ongoing battles between state officials and Constellation Energy Group escalated again Thursday when Maryland regulators ordered a review of the company's deal with a French utility and Constellation quickly countered with a lawsuit. The Public Service Commission, the state's top energy regulator, determined that Constellation's $4.5 billion deal to sell half its nuclear power assets to Electricite de France must be in the public's interest. The order adds a regulatory hurdle to completing the transaction, which the company had hoped to do by October.

Readers want to know: Now that regulators say BGE's standard household electricity price will be lower for the 2009-2010 winter than it was for the 2008-2009 winter, does it still make sense to switch to a competing offer from Washington Gas Energy Services? Yes. Last winter's default BGE price (about 12 cents per kilowatt hour, not counting delivery) was the highest ever for that season, so being slightly lower for next winter is no big deal. WGES (888-884-9437) will sell you juice for up to three years at 10.8 cents, so it's still the superior offer at least for the next 12 months.

Lower electricity rates next winter Residential customers of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. can expect electricity rates to be lower next winter compared with the past one that resulted in increased complaints about higher-than-expected utility bills, state energy regulators said Thursday. The new projections are based on bids for electricity for two-year power contracts that begin Oct. 1. The recent bids from an auction completed Monday reflect lower wholesale energy prices. The actual rates will be released by June 1. However, BGE residential customers will pay $16 more on average for their annual bills from June to May 2010.