Utilities

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., which fixed the last of its Cyclone Sandy power outages Friday, sent workers to harder-hit regions over the weekend and on Monday. BGE said 64 overhead linemen, safety and support workers are in the Philadelphia area, helping PECO. Both utilities are owned by Exelon Corp. A dozen BGE natural-gas mechanics and technicians, meanwhile, left Monday to aid New Jersey Natural Gas, which shut off service to part of the state last week because the system had been so badly damaged.

Utility and emergency response officials prepared for the worst Friday as Hurricane Sandy churned northward, readying for nearly a foot of rain, hurricane- or tropical storm-force winds, and power outages that could number in the hundreds of thousands. As Gov. Martin O'Malley declared a state of emergency Friday to ready relief supplies and mobilize the National Guard, Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. officials hurried to muster 2,000 out-of-state utility workers. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and county government leaders urged residents to prepare.

As traffic whizzed by on West Street, Nancy Patterson and her service dog, Mahler, rolled smoothly past homes and car dealerships until a utility pole jutted from the center of the brand-new sidewalk. Patterson negotiated her wheelchair around the pole, wincing as she got close to the road, and kept rolling, too excited to pay the obstacle much mind. "I haven't been able to walk on West Street, ever, before today," Patterson said. "It's a huge freedom for people with disabilities.

Whether or not they accept the scientific evidence that climate change is man-made, Maryland businesses and families with electric lights know that climate change has already had a dire economic impact on our region. Unprecedented weather extremes have pummeled our state and power distribution system. Crippling storms and heat in the summer and snow storms in the winter, previously rare in Maryland, have become commonplace. Such extreme weather events dramatically increase the risk to Maryland's old-fashioned electric utilities, which were built and are managed for a 1950s economy - and climate.

If a hurricane threatens to barrel up the Chesapeake Bay in the next month, many Marylanders will watch the forecast with dread. Memories of spending days without power after Hurricane Irene and the June derecho are fresh and painful. Utilities such as Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. watch the forecast, too, readying forces to assess and repair damage to the grid. To many angry customers, though, utilities' preparations appeared to be lacking in recent storms. But what if there was a way to accurately pinpoint how many power outages a storm might cause?

The Maryland Public Service Commission may prohibit the state's utility companies from charging customers a small service fee during the first day of a major power outage. "It's like pouring salt in their wounds. … It may be 50 cents, but in a household budget every penny counts," Commissioner W. Kevin Hughes told representatives of Maryland's energy distribution companies during a hearing Monday afternoon. At meetings throughout the state, Hughes said, the commission has heard from utility customers who think that paying the utilities an energy-distribution fee on top of the expenses incurred during an outage — the cost of lost food, for instance — adds insult to injury.

After two massive, widespread, multi-day power outages in less than a year and thousands of complaints from angry customers left in the dark, literally and figuratively, it can now safely be said that Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. gets it. Company officials testified before the Public Service Commission last week that they are strategically hardening the system and asking the big questions about what it would take to redesign the entire grid to promote...

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. officials told state energy regulators Thursday that major changes to the electricity grid, including burying some power lines and more aggressively trimming trees, are needed to prevent long-term outages like the one that followed the June 29 derecho. "A part of the solution has to be having less damage to repair," CEO Kenneth W. DeFontes Jr. said at a Maryland Public Service Commission hearing on utilities' response to the storm. "Undergrounding selectively has to be part of the solution.

Maryland energy regulators were set to meet Thursday morning to review utilities' response to the more than 1 million power outages in the state caused by a derecho storm June 29. Officials with Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., Pepco and other utilities were scheduled to appear before the Public Service Commission at a 10 a.m. hearing. The hearing follows opportunities given across the state last month for members of the public to share their concerns with commissioners. The hearings are part of commissioners' efforts to determine whether BGE and other utilities acted appropriately in cleaning up and repairing after the storm, which brought damaging 70 mph winds across the state.

Four major electricity providers defended the safety of "smart meters" Tuesday at a hearing called by the Maryland Public Service Commission after commissioners read reports of similar meters overheating and catching fire in Southeastern Pennsylvania. "We've had five cases so far where the temperature threshold was exceeded," said Michael Butts, Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s director of business transformation. He said BGE has installed 65,000 of the advanced meters. In all five cases, the overheating was detected by sensors in the meters and BGE was alerted, he said.