Why is my BGE bill so high?

• Your BGE bill includes the costs of gas and electricity and the costs of the wires and pipes to deliver them to your home.

• More than half of the energy we use is for heating and cooling, so bills are highest in the winter and summer.

• That’s no excuse for outrageous rates. Utilities have an obligation to provide safe, affordable, and reliable energy to customers year round. When utility profits skyrocket, and service does not improve, or gets worse, regulators and legislators need to intervene.

BGE delivery rates rising 

BGE gas and electric delivery rates have increased far faster than inflation. BGE gas delivery rates have tripled since 2010 and gas customers now pay $2 for delivery for every $1 they pay for the gas itself. Electric delivery rates have doubled since 2010.

BGE profits rising

The more BGE spends, the larger its opportunity to profit. When it builds new pipes or wires, it earns profits on the expense, similar to a mortgage or high interest credit card. This creates a powerful incentive for wasteful spending.

BGE profits have nearly quardrupled from $147 million in 2010 to $578 million in 2025.

BGE’s Operation Pipeline

BGE has spent $1.4 billion on “Operation Pipeline,” its gas pipeline replacement program. If BGE completes its proposed $4 billion in gas pipeline spending it could cost customers $19.5 billion to pay back, largely due to BGE profits.

Maryland PIRG’s report Fast-Tracked and Flawed found that BGE is not adequately prioritizing safety in Operation Pipeline, and that the program may actually be slowing the work to repair or replace the most at-risk pipes.

Multi-Year Rate Increases and Forecasted Rates

Multi-year rate plans (MRPs) allow utilities to ask for rate increases in advance of spending instead of making them defend any extra spending, increasing their financial incentive to spend wastefully.This method of “forecasting” spending increases shifts financial risk from shareholders to ratepayers. Rate increases under MRPs have been at least 40% higher than rate increases in Maryland from 2006-2020. In 2026 the state legislature put a 1 year moratorium on new forecasted rates and multiyear rate plans in Maryland.

Stopping Wasteful Spending

We need our utility regulators and legislators to hold BGE accountable to stop wasteful spending that is driving up our bills.

In 2025 the legislature passed important legislation to ensure gas pipeline spending prioritizes safety and to stop wasteful spending by gas and electric utilities using MRPs, but we’ll need to push hard to ensure utility regulators follow through.

Additional resources

Office of the People’s Counsel: Why is my BGE bill so high?

The Insiders Guide for Applying to Home Energy Assistance

Energy Efficiency: How to access your utility’s EmPOWER program

PJM mismanagement is increasing electricity costs, industry profits

• PJM is our regional electric grid operator. PJM is controlled largely by power plant owners and utilities and determines what energy can connect to the grid to ensure a proper balance of supply and demand, as well as managing transmission lines that deliver electricity to your home.
• PJM typically sets electric supply rates through an auction, which forecasts prices a year in advance.
• Supply rates are notoriously volatile, driven largely by commodity prices for gas; however steady increases in transmission costs and mismanagement by PJM have exacerbated price spikes.

BGE electric supply rates went up by roughly 25% last September.

PJM mismanagement

Electric supply rates have spiked dramatically this year across all 13 PJM states including Maryland due to PJM mismanagement.

1. PJM is making it too hard for cheaper, clean energy like solar connected batteries to connect to the grid to bring prices down.
2. PJM is setting rules that pad the profits of utilities and fossil fuel companies at the expense of customers.
3. PJM is not properly planning for nor assessing costs appropriately for projected increases in energy demand from data centers.

Slow walking clean energy

Compared to other grid managers, PJM has one of the longest timelines in the country for connecting new clean energy projects. 

• 98% of projects that have been awaiting approval are renewable energy projects. PJM has failed to connect these hundreds of gigawatts of clean power to the grid – enough to power 60 million homes.
• A recent analysis found that if PJM increased the speed it allows new projects to connect to the grid, it would save households at least $500 a year.

Maryland lawmakers passed legislation in 2025 to speed up deployment of energy storage, one of the fastest and most cost effective ways to bring new energy online.

Padding Profits for Fossil Fuels and Utilities

PJM’s decision not to count energy produced by two active power plants in their supply pool caused as much as 65% of BGE bill increases we saw in 2025. After pushback from consumer advocates, PJM changed that policy for 2026, but we’re stuck paying an estimated $5 billion based on that anti-consumer policy choice.

The same energy companies who play a powerful role in the decision making at PJM are seeing significant financial gains because of the auction results.

Utility companies are also seeing windfall profits due to PJM mismanagement. BGE was granted a no-bid contract to build a new transmission line without a competitive process and without considering cost effective alternatives to transmission. BGE’s projected costs have already doubled from $800 million to $1.5 billion.

Data Center Forecasts

PJM has enough electricity to meet demand for the nearterm. But PJM is projecting a massive increase in demand due to data centers.

It’s unclear if and how much this increase will actually come. But Maryland electric customers are already seeing higher rates because PJM is making residential households and small businesses bear the costs for new generation and transmission instead of the large users.