By MDBayNews Staff
Marylanders are being gently introduced to an unpleasant reality: “load shedding” is just rolling blackouts with better branding. And according to internal talking points from the Maryland Energy Administration, the risk is not theoretical — it is immediate, regional, and largely self-inflicted.
A memo circulated this week warns that the Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE) service area faces a “low but not insignificant risk” of a grid event during peak morning demand, driven by extreme cold, transmission constraints, and — most damningly — low local generation supply.
That last point should alarm every household, business, and policymaker in the state.
The Problem Maryland Didn’t Want to Admit
The Maryland Energy Administration memo lays out the situation plainly:
- Record-high demand due to extreme cold
- Inherent transmission constraints in the BGE zone
- Insufficient local power generation
This is not a surprise. Maryland imports a large share of its electricity from the regional PJM Interconnection grid. When demand spikes across the entire region, imported power becomes scarce — and expensive — or simply unavailable.
In other words, Maryland’s grid is brittle by design.
The Policy Choices Behind the Shortage
For years, state leaders have celebrated the retirement of reliable baseload generation — coal, nuclear, and dispatchable natural gas — without ensuring equivalent, always-available replacements. Wind and solar expansion has raced ahead of grid modernization, storage capacity, and transmission upgrades.
That gamble works on mild days. It fails during emergencies.
The memo acknowledges that even with PJM having no emergency procedures active as of January 26, load shedding may still be required simply to maintain grid stability. Translation: officials are hoping demand drops before the lights do.
Hope is not a power source.
Conservation Orders Are Not a Strategy
The recommended actions read like crisis management rather than energy planning:
- Urging counties to promote energy conservation
- Closing non-essential public facilities
- Preparing backup generators for hospitals and emergency services
These are defensive moves, not solutions. They shift responsibility from policymakers to residents while quietly admitting the system cannot meet peak demand.
Marylanders are being asked to turn down thermostats in January because the state turned down energy realism years ago.
Accountability Starts at the Top
Governor Wes Moore and his administration inherited some of these challenges — but they have also doubled down on the same ideological energy framework. The result is a grid that looks impressive on climate scorecards and fragile under real-world stress.
Reliability used to be non-negotiable. Now it is treated as a tradeoff.
A Warning, Not a One-Off
State officials call this a “precautionary notification.” Voters should call it what it really is: an early warning of a system under strain.
As electrification mandates expand, data centers multiply, and winter and summer peaks grow more severe, Maryland’s energy gap will widen unless leaders change course.
Rolling blackouts don’t start with darkness.
They start with memos like this — and a refusal to change direction.
MDBayNews | Energy & Infrastructure
Holding power accountable — before the power goes out.
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