The governor is selling Marylanders $150 a year in savings. A confirmed rate hike arriving the same month he signs the bill will cost BGE customers more than that before summer ends.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Governor Wes Moore has already signed the Utility RELIEF Act, the legislation Democratic leaders called the “crown jewel” of the 2026 General Assembly session. The bill, they say, will save Maryland families at least $150 on their energy bills every year. The governor has been selling that number since January.
Do the math. One hundred and fifty dollars a year is $12.50 a month.
Republican lawmakers even said that plainly during floor debates. House Minority Leader Jason Buckel and Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey both went on record making that calculation. Moore signed the bill anyway.
In June — the same month the RELIEF Act’s savings are supposed to begin materializing — BGE customers are set to see their bills climb by an estimated $16 a month, according to a report from the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, the state’s own ratepayer advocate. Other utility customers face similar increases.
The RELIEF Act doesn’t deliver relief. It delivers a press release — and a $3.50 monthly deficit to go with it.
Where the June Hike Comes From
The rate increase isn’t a surprise or an administrative quirk. It flows directly from PJM Interconnection’s annual capacity market auction — the mechanism by which the regional grid operator ensures there is enough power available during peak demand periods. The 2025/2026 auction cleared at its maximum allowed price of $329.17 per megawatt-day. Without a price cap that Maryland and Pennsylvania lobbied to impose, PJM estimated the clearing price would have reached $388.57.
“One time is a fluke, two times is a pattern — and nothing happened this year to prevent it in the future.”
— Josh Tulkin, Sierra Club Maryland Chapter
That cap did limit the damage — but not enough. The total cost of electricity capacity across the PJM region for the year beginning June 2026 is $16.4 billion. For context, the same figure in 2024 was $2.2 billion. That’s not a modest increase. That’s a structural collapse in regional power economics that is now landing directly on Maryland ratepayers’ monthly bills.
PJM attributes the surge to the retirement of coal and oil plants, surging data center demand, electrification of vehicles and home heating systems, and the offshoring reversal driving industrial electricity consumption back to U.S. grids. Moore’s own administration has acknowledged the dynamic — and has simultaneously been welcoming data center development in Maryland, including a proposed facility in Calvert County.
The Fund That Keeps Getting Raided
Even setting aside the June hike, the architecture of the RELIEF Act deserves scrutiny. The bill’s $100 million in direct ratepayer rebates — the most tangible piece of the “relief” offer — is funded by drawing from Maryland’s Strategic Energy Investment Fund, a dedicated clean energy reserve built from utility compliance payments.
This is the second consecutive year the Moore administration has drawn from that fund to backfill budget gaps and fund rebates. The first year, according to environmental advocates who pushed for guardrails, might have been defensible as an emergency measure. This year, facing a $1.5 billion budget shortfall, the administration pulled more than $700 million from SEIF — and the session ended without any mechanism to prevent it from happening again in 2027.
Josh Tulkin, director of the Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club, didn’t mince words: “One time is a fluke, two times is a pattern — and nothing happened this year to prevent it in the future.”
Kim Coble of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters offered a more measured assessment, noting that the session should be judged against what advocates were defending against, not what they had hoped to gain. Some early proposals would have gutted the EmPOWER energy efficiency program entirely. “We retain the program, we retain the structure,” she said — framing the outcome as damage limitation, not victory.
Data Centers and the Cost Question Nobody Answered
The RELIEF Act includes a provision requiring data centers to pay for their own grid infrastructure upgrades — a direct response to the documented strain large facilities place on regional capacity. Moore has framed this as a reasonable middle path: Maryland shouldn’t become Northern Virginia, but it also shouldn’t close its doors to the digital economy.
Critics aren’t convinced the framing holds. The bill’s “Bring Your Own Clean Energy” framework — which allows data centers paired with zero-emissions energy sources to jump the grid interconnection queue — creates a direct financial incentive connecting data center developers to nuclear energy projects. Environmental advocates have pointed to a proposed AI data center in Calvert County as an early test case. The cost question, as one critic put it, remains unanswered: “Even if it never gets built, there will be a cost, and that cost is borne by someone. How will this lower energy bills if they’re going to add distribution costs in the long run onto ratepayers?”
Moore has not provided a public accounting of that cost.
What the Clock Looks Like
Moore has until May 13 to sign or veto the Utility RELIEF Act. He is expected to sign it. When he does, the official clock on his $150 annual savings promise starts running. So does June.
Maryland ratepayers will have a real-world data point by July: their bill. Not a projection, not a legislative press release, not a figure cited at a State House news conference with the Speaker and Senate President flanking the governor. An actual number, on an actual bill, in an actual household.
That number, according to the state’s own ratepayer advocate, is likely to be higher than it was before Moore’s crown jewel became law.
Any Republican challenger running against Moore in 2026 doesn’t need to build a complicated argument. They need a constituent’s BGE bill from July, the governor’s $150 promise, and a calculator.
Sources Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, Bill and Rate Impacts of PJM Capacity Market Results (multiple reports, 2024–2026); PJM Interconnection, 2025/2026 Capacity Market Auction Results; Utility RELIEF Act (HB1532), Maryland General Assembly 2026 Session; Maryland Matters, “Energy bill heads to Moore’s desk on session’s final day,” April 14, 2026; Inside Climate News / Canary Media, “Maryland Passes Energy Bill That Delivers Short-Term Relief, Locks Ratepayers into Long-Term Nuclear Subsidy,” April 21, 2026; Chesapeake Climate Action Network, “PJM Auction Means Another Year of High Electricity Prices,” December 2025; Conduit Street (Maryland Association of Counties), “PJM Capacity Auction Will Send Energy Prices Soaring,” July 24, 2025; CBS Baltimore, “Maryland electricity bills rise again as supply costs climb,” September 4, 2025; Office of Governor Wes Moore, Utility RELIEF Act announcement press release, April 2026.
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