PSC Orders BGE, Utilities to Improve Service

The Maryland Public Service Commission issued an order on Wednesday directing electricity companies to improve service reliability and resiliency.

Utility companies in Maryland will need to beef up efforts to improve electricity service reliability and resiliency, according to an order issued by the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) on Wednesday, Feb. 27. The order comes less than one week after the PSC granted Baltimore Gas and Electric Company about 65 percent of the rate increase that the utility requested last summer. The order (No. 85385) requires utility providers to do the following: The PSC is also investigating BGE's reliability in several Howard County neighborhoods as the result of a grass-roots effort led by residents in Ellicott CIty who say they have dealt with unreliability for years. The PSC's report has been submitted - BGE has until April 1 to respond, …

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cathy eshmont

9:12 pm on Friday, March 1, 2013

Join your neighbors in demanding reliability -- it's ridiculous that many of us live in third world pockets of unreliable power in the third wealthiest county in the nation. Check out Howard County's grassroots effort "Reliability4HOCO" on Facebook. AARP is sponsoring a rally in Annapolis on Thursday to let our Legislators know that we are watching and don't want any more surcharges -- like they …   more ›

Residents Decry BGE's Requested Rate Hike

The Public Service Commission came to Ellicott City - again - to hear from residents around the county.

In contrast to Annapolis, where just one person took to the microphone, more than a dozen spoke in Howard County at a hearing about a rate increase requested by Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., the Howard County Times reported. The hearing comes less than two weeks after a report, submitted by the Public Service Commission staff, called BGE’s service in certain Ellicott City neighborhoods “below average.” The report is part of an investigation into BGE's reliability in areas of Ellicott City. At Wednesday night’s hearing, 14 people testified against the rate increase, the Times reported. BGE wants to raise about $175 million in the first year of the hike, which will apply to the distribution fees on customers’ bills. With that money, BGE …

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Hearing on BGE Rate Hike Tonight

The Public Service Commission will listen to testimony in a hearing regarding BGE's request for a rate hike.

Hearing on BGE Rate Hike This Week

The utility is asking for an increase - have your say at a public hearing in Ellicott City.

Think your gas and/or electricity bill is too high? You might want to head to George Howard Building Wednesday, for a hearing concerning Baltimore Gas and Electric’s request to raise rates. BGE wants to raise about $175 million in the first year of the rate hike, according to the Baltimore Sun, to pay for infrastructure improvements. The rate change would raise the typical residential distribution rate for electricity about $6.62 a month and the typical gas rate by about $4.26, the Sun reports.  Read about BGE's reliability in Ellicott City on Patch The utility’s last rate hike was approved more than two years ago - a $1.34 per month raise for the typical residential electric customer and 84 cents for gas, according to the Sun. Wednesday’s…

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BGE CEO Suggests 'Selectively' Burying Power Lines

But at a hearing with the PSC, the chief executive officer supported the utility's decision to withhold information from officials to protect customers' privacy.

The chief executive officer of BGE told the state’s utilities regulator on Thursday that the only way to shorten the length of major power outages would be to have a “very different delivery system,” the Baltimore Sun reports. BGE CEO Kenneth W. DeFontes Jr. was speaking at a Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) hearing, scheduled after more than 760,000 Maryland residents lost power in the wake of the late-June derecho storm.  At the hearing, which is standard procedure after “major outage events,” DeFontes reportedly told regulators that BGE would need to bury some power lines–and more aggressively trim trees–to prevent more long-term outages. After June’s derecho, customers who lost power were in the dark for an average of 38 hours…

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Electorate.Me

8:56 am on Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Did you speak at the hearing or write a letter to the PSC? Post your speech or letter on www.Electorate.Me for the rest of us who couldn't make it to hearing.   more ›

Public Service Commission Ready to Hear Storm Stories Wednesday

Follow-up to June storm is set for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 15, at the George Howard Building.

The Public Service Commission is hosting a public hearing in Ellicott City Wednesday evening, one of several statewide so citizens can discuss utility company responses to the devastating June 29 storm. In Maryland, it took BGE eight days to restore power to the 748,000 customers whose service was knocked out, 62 percent of its statewide customer base. In July, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman and other county leaders sent a letter to the Public Service Commission, which regulates BGE, asking that it require utility companies to make operational improvements. The Howard County hearing will be at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 15, in the George Howard Building. Other hearings are scheduled for Baltimore on Tuesday, Aug. 14; and Towson, on …

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BGE Rate Hike Would Cover Past Work

Money from a rate increase will not be used for new work, but BGE will continue to update infrastructure, spokesman said.

  A rate adjustment requested by BGE will mostly cover work that the utility company has already performed, according to a spokesman.  “In Maryland, that’s the way it works,” BGE Spokesman Rob Gould said. “You spend the money and then you go back to the [Public Service] Commission and you ask them for recovery of the costs that you incurred.” BGE announced Friday evening that it had filed a request with the Public Service Commission (PSC) for a rate hike that, according to the utility, would add an additional $7.22 to the “typical” customer’s electric bill.  There are a few places where BGE will use some of the money going forward, Gould said, including vegetation maintenance. He could not say if the money would specifically be used for …

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Facts, Opinion, Frustration at Hearing on BGE Reliability

Hundreds of people showed up at a hearing to share stories of power loss, frustration.

Early Tuesday morning, residents in several Ellicott City neighborhoods briefly lost power.  The timing of the outage provided a brief reprieve of laughter during a three-hour hearing later that evening with the Public Service Commission in which residents discussed the ways they said unreliable power service had affected their lives.   The hearing is part of a PSC investigation into reliability issues in some of the older Ellicott City neighborhoods.   David Rubin has lived in the Font Hill neighborhood for two decades during which, he testified, he’s had “at least 100 outages from as brief as five seconds up to eight consecutive days, following Irene.” He told Public Utility Law Judge David L. Moore that power outages are particularly …

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John Hardy

6:00 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012

Yes, kudos to the boots on the ground. As for the general performance of BGE operations managers and executives, Mary Ellen, I believe you may be living on a planet with more than one moon.   more ›

Today: Public Hearing on BGE Reliability in Ellicott City

The state's regulatory agency will be taking comments from residents about experiences with power outages.

Want to tell the state what you think about BGE's reliability in Ellicott City?  The Public Service Commission (PSC), which regulates the state's big utility companies, will be listening to residents at a public hearing tonight (Tuesday) at the George Howard Building from 7 to 10 p.m. The PSC is investigating after more than 300 residents from the Font Hill, Valley Mede and nearby neighborhoods sent a formal complaint, saying they had faced "chronic reliability problems" with BGE. BGE had implemented an improvement plan which included trimming trees ahead of its four-year schedule in certain neighborhoods and burying some of the power lines underground. Despite BGE's remediation, some residents of the petitioning neighborhoods were in the …

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Utility Regulator Schedules Public Hearings After Derecho

The Public Service Commission will hear from residents across the state about their outages.

Maryland's utility regulator has scheduled hearings across the state to hear from residents about their experiences with the utilities during the powerful derecho storm that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of residents. The Maryland Public Service Commission will hear testimony from Howard County residents on Wednesday, Aug. 15 at the George Howard Building in Ellicott City at 7 p.m.  Residents who wish to submit written testimony may do so by Sept. 10. Mail comments to: David J. Collins, Executive Secretary, Maryland Public Service Commission, William Donald Schaefer Tower, 6 St. Paul Street, 16th Floor, Baltimore, Maryland 21202. In a July 10 letter to the PSC, officials said that utilities needed to improve performance, …

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