Maryland ratepayers could save hundreds of dollars a year on their electric bills if the regional power grid operator could speed up approval of energy projects, some of which have languished for five years in the current system.
That is the main finding of a new report on PJM Interconnection, the grid operator that distributes power in Maryland, the District of Columbia and 12 other states, stretching from the mid-Atlantic to parts of Illinois.
The report, released Tuesday by a national environmental nonprofit, predicts that Maryland households could see an average of $546 in annual savings on their electric bills from 2025 to 2040, with savings peaking at$1,006 a year in 2036 over current practices. The report, by Massachusetts-based research and consulting firm Synapse, predicts that bills across PJM will grow by 60% between now and 2036 with no change in policies; with the changes, bills would actually decrease by 7% in that period.
“Folks probably don’t know much about PJM or what this organization is doing behind the scenes, but it’s about to hit their pocketbooks,” said Charles Harper, senior policy lead for the power sector at Evergreen Collaborative, the environmental nonprofit that commissioned the report.
“So, we wanted to look at what PJM has done to contribute to this problem, by not adding new energy projects efficiently to the electric grid, and to really look forward and look proactively at what reforms we could do now,” he said.
It’s not just PJM. Harper said grid operators around the country are feeling the pinch of a “new paradigm.”
