Dive Summary:

• On Friday, the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) approved the long-held request of Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) to impose a “Grid Resilience Charge” (GRC) on customers’ monthly bills to pay for investments in grid infrastructure even before the investments have been made.
• More than a half-million customers in Maryland’s Montgomery and Prince George’s counties must now pay a premium price for reliable electricity service.
• The PSC “resilience” surcharge is a change of heart for the commission which in the past, has rejected utilities’ request to pay for infrastructure investments through “trackers”, which are “concurrent surcharges” allowing a utility to recover costs from its ratepayer right after an expense, rather than through a rate case. Maryland’s new rule may influence “grid resilience” regulatory proceedings in New Jersey and New York considering a similar “storm hardening” surcharge.

From the article:
“Today we are letting the tracker genie out of the bottle, and I fear it will continue granting the wishes of Maryland utilities for many years and we may never get it back in the bottle.”