Maryland Governor’s $200 Million Plan To Lower Power Bills Comes With A Catch

Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s new program to bring down power bills won’t lower them right away, the state’s top energy official said.

The Maryland Energy Administration opened applications Monday for “Megawatts for Maryland,” a $200 million program that pays grants to developers of renewable energy and storage projects in the state, according to Moore’s office. The grants are paid only after a project begins commercial operation, according to the agency’s funding announcement.

“This program is an investment in energy affordability for Maryland in the medium to long-term,” Maryland Energy Administration Director Kelly Speakes-Backman said, according to Maryland Matters.

“This is not going to be something that impacts our bill tomorrow,” she added.

Moore pitched the program as relief for households facing higher electricity costs.

“We’re using every tool at our disposal to bring Marylanders relief as energy costs skyrocket in our region and across the country,” Moore said in a press release Monday. “This program will tackle rising electricity demand with cleaner, cheaper, in-state energy generation that will drive down costs for the long-term.”

Moore faces Republican Dan Cox in the Nov. 3 election. The incumbent is the heavy favorite due to Maryland’s strong Democratic lean.

A Maryland Energy Administration spokesperson said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation that the agency expects awarded projects to total hundreds of megawatts, though the exact number “will depend on technology, size of project, and how much the developers bid.”

“Megawatts for Maryland will contribute to driving down costs by putting more energy on the grid, alongside other policies,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson cited $200 million in direct bill rebates the state announced in 2025 and another $100 million in relief under the Utility RELIEF Act, but did not say how much the new program would save a typical household or when those savings would begin.

The agency does not expect most projects to take the roughly seven years allowed to begin operating, the spokesperson said.

Republican Maryland Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey said in a statement to the DCNF that the administration “is announcing another $200 million government program funded through costs ultimately borne by electricity customers.”

“And by their own admission, Marylanders shouldn’t expect meaningful relief from this program anytime soon,” Hershey said.

The program will draw up to $100 million a year from the state’s Strategic Energy Investment Fund over two years, according to the release. The second $100 million isn’t guaranteed yet. The agency’s program page lists it for fiscal 2028 as “anticipated.”

Developers submit closed bids, and the lowest bid per megawatt-hour of power wins, according to the program page. Each grant can be as small as $1 million or as large as $80 million, though the agency can raise that ceiling. The projects have to be built in Maryland, according to the funding announcement.

First-stage applications are due Nov. 30 and bids are due Jan. 22, 2027, according to the program page. The agency expects to announce winners in spring 2027. Funded projects get about seven years to come online, and the agency can grant extensions, according to the funding announcement.

Moore’s office said in Monday’s release that the program aims to add “hundreds of megawatts” of power, enough for more than 150,000 homes.

Maryland sits within PJM Interconnection, the grid operator serving more than 67 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C. PJM said its capacity auction for 2026-27 cleared at the federally approved price cap.

The next auction cleared at a higher cap and fell short of PJM’s reliability target, with large new loads driving up the demand forecast, according to a PJM presentation.

Twelve Maryland generation projects aiming to start service by the end of 2028 are under study in PJM’s interconnection queue, totaling about 1,225 megawatts of maximum potential output, PJM spokesperson Jeff Shields said in a statement to the DCNF.

Seven are storage projects, four are solar and one combines solar and storage. Maryland imported about 40 percent of the power it used last year, in line with its historical share, Shields said.

“Maryland needs both new generation facilities to produce power and new transmission infrastructure to move that power to the consumers who need it,” Shields said.

The program’s money comes from “alternative compliance payments,” which electricity suppliers pay instead of meeting the state’s renewable energy quotas, Maryland Matters reported.

That pot of money could shrink if the program works. Legislative analysts wrote in the bill’s fiscal note that more renewable power could mean fewer of those payments in future years.

State budget laws authorized moving $489 million out of that same account to the general fund over the last two years, $230 million in fiscal 2025 and $259 million in fiscal 2026, according to the state’s Department of Legislative Services and the 2026 budget law. Moore’s administration requested the 2026 bill.

Hershey said the administration has used those funds “to help balance the state budget while Maryland families continue to struggle with some of the highest electricity costs in the region.”

Senate Republicans would “reform Maryland’s Renewable Portfolio Standard to establish realistic and achievable renewable energy requirements” and return the accumulated payments “to the ratepayers who financed them,” Hershey said.

Republican Maryland Del. Brian Chisholm said in a statement to the DCNF that he would “redirect funding away from Maryland Energy Administration programs that subsidize favored projects and use it to provide direct, measurable relief to ratepayers.”

Chisholm said the state takes money from ratepayers, gives some of it back in rebates and uses part of it “to help balance the Governor’s ever growing budget.”

“Then they slap a shiny name on it like ‘Megawatts for Maryland’ and expect you to celebrate getting a fraction of your own money back,” he said.

The governor’s office said in the release that the program “will help fill investment gaps created when the Trump Administration canceled investment tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act.”

“This is a really big deal: $200 million toward in-state generation through a grant process. It’s the largest that I know that MEA [Maryland Energy Administration] has ever done in terms of a singular program. But no, it’s not going to replace the ITCs [investment tax credits],” Speakes-Backman said, according to WYPR.

The program was created by the Utility RELIEF Act, HB 1532, which passed the House of Delegates 105-27 and the Senate 35-11 on April 13, according to the Maryland General Assembly. Moore signed it May 12. The law requires the energy agency to report to lawmakers on the first auction by July 1, 2027.

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