The way Maryland Del. Lorig Charkoudian (D) sees it, working with other Mid-Atlantic states to study the costs and benefits of withdrawing from PJM is, at this point, the only responsible thing to do.

“PJM is frustratingly slow in changing, if changing at all [and] continues ─ even in a reliability crisis of their own making ─ to double down on their love affair with fossil fuels … at a really significant cost to our ratepayers. And so, you reach a point where it’s almost irresponsible not to say, ‘What are the other options?’”

Charkoudian was speaking during a recent legislative update call hosted by the Maryland Clean Energy Center (MCEC), where she previewed a package of bills she is sponsoring during the current legislative session, including H.B. 143, calling for the state to work with neighboring PJM states to study possible alternatives.

For example, the states ─ Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and maybe Virginia ─ could start their own RTO or use PJM’s fixed resource requirement (FRR) “to pull ourselves out of the capacity auction,” she said.

Going the FRR route would require utilities in the states to procure their own capacity, rather than relying on PJM’s increasingly expensive capacity auctions, and H.B. 143 also would require Maryland utilities to study the costs and benefits of ensuring they could provide at least 80% of their capacity.

“The idea is to explore doing more capacity procurement through bilateral contracts and then use the PJM auction” as backup, Charkoudian said in an email to Livewire.

The Maryland General Assembly kicked off its 2026 session Jan. 14, and as far as energy policy is concerned, Charkoudian predicts “an adventurous year … [with] a lot of moving parts.”

Like Gov. Wes Moore’s Lower Cost and Local Power Act ─ announced Jan. 27 ─ which could actually tie the state more firmly to PJM by requiring all utilities to join the RTO. The bill has yet to be formally introduced, but a one-page summary argues that having all the state’s utilities in PJM ─ including small municipal utilities that generally have lower rates than investor-owned utilities ─ would lower electric bills.

The state’s largest utilities ─ Baltimore Gas and Electric, Pepco Maryland and Delmarva Power, all IOUs owned by Exelon ─ already are members, as is the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative. (See below for more details about the governor’s bill.)

So, the 90-day legislative session ahead is shaping up as a case study in how states facing explosive demand growth will attempt to build more clean energy, cut electric bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as PJM and the Trump administration resist any change that puts more solar, wind and storage online.

Maryland aims for 100% carbon-free power by 2035 but imports 40% of its electricity from the regional grid, making it particularly dependent on PJM’s mostly fossil-fueled power and vulnerable to any swings in the RTO’s market prices. The state’s consumers already are absorbing rate increases due to PJM’s price-spiking capacity auctions, and more pain is ahead with the December auction, for 2027/28, hitting yet another record high, $333.44/MW-day, up from $28.92/MW-day in 2023.

“It’s very easy to get caught up in all the drama around energy right now,” Charkoudian said during the MCEC call. “[But} we have, for the most part, all of the tools that we need, and we need to put them together in the right policy.”

Charkoudian vs. Moore

The politics of the upcoming midterm elections also are a key factor ─ Moore and all state lawmakers are running for re-election in November ─ affecting what new energy policies can be shepherded through the legislature and reach Moore’s desk.

Both the governor and Charkoudian want to get more clean energy online in Maryland, to help wean the state off its dependence on PJM and provide support for local installers, developers and consumers in the absence of federal incentives cut off by the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The 30% federal tax credit for residential solar was terminated Dec. 31, 2025. Commercial projects still can qualify for the credit if they start construction by July 4, 2026, and are online by the end of 2027.

The one-page summary of Moore’s bill says it will “create a process for clean energy projects to apply for financing for shovel-ready projects,” which, on the face of it, could primarily benefit utility-scale projects. (Residential and smaller commercial projects are rarely described as “shovel-ready.”)

In contrast, Charkoudian’s Affordable Solar Act (H.B. 345) lays out a detailed plan for Maryland to adopt incentives similar to New Jersey’s, providing different levels of financial support for different kinds of solar ─ utility-scale, commercial, community solar and residential.

Incentives for utility-scale projects would be determined through a competitive auction, with the lowest-cost projects receiving incentives, while the state’s Public Service Commission would set the price for solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs) for residential, community solar and commercial projects under 5 MW.

The PSC would review and adjust the SREC price every three years, or more frequently if warranted by market conditions. Right now, the SREC price in New Jersey has been set at $85/MWh. Maryland SRECs are priced around $50, according to Flett Exchange, an online SREC trading platform.

New Jersey’s utility-scale auctions got off to a rocky start, with the state’s Board of Public Utilities rejecting all the bids in the first solicitation in 2023, saying they were too high. A second auction in 2024 awarded incentives to eight utility-scale projects totaling 310 MW.

Charkoudian described her proposed incentives as the “best bang for the buck from a ratepayer side, from a Maryland side. … We’re going to provide as much subsidy as is needed, but not a penny more, to each different sector of the industry.”

The bill also would make plug-in “balcony solar” legal in Maryland ─ a significant win for cutting home electric bills ─ and ensure that ratepayer dollars intended for the state’s clean energy fund cannot be used to fill holes in the state budget. Moore wants to take $292 million from the fund ─ the Strategic Energy Investment Fund (SEIF) ─ to backfill a 2027 deficit estimated at close to $1.5 billion.

ATTs and Grid Expansion

Both Moore and Charkoudian are bullish on advanced transmission technologies, which can optimize and expand capacity on existing power lines, as a cheaper, faster alternative to building new transmission.

Moore’s bill calls on utilities “to prioritize [ATTs] to expand existing grid capacity and authorize the use of state and interstate highway corridors to co-locate these projects.”

Again, Charkoudian provides a more detailed approach in H.B. 40. Utilities or other transmission owners within the state would be required to identify areas where grid congestion has occurred in the past three years, as well as where congestion may be likely to occur over the next five years, and then develop plans for using ATTs as part of any grid upgrades or expansion.

Developers seeking a certificate of public convenience and necessity for transmission projects also would have to show they’ve considered ATTs as an alternative to building a new line.

Charkoudian acknowledged that implementing the law could be tricky due to the fine line between state and federal regulation of new transmission. But she sees ATTs providing both grid efficiency and affordability.

An additional problem here is the slipperiness of legislative language. Any effort to get utilities to prioritize or consider new technologies tends to lead to highly technical arguments about why said technologies are not appropriate or feasible for any one project or situation. Compensation is another potential roadblock since upgrading wires with ATTs may be considered a maintenance cost that cannot be passed on to a utility’s customers ─ that is, in many places, ATTs cannot be rate-based.

Moore’s bill acknowledges that ATTs must be part of a bigger grid expansion strategy. The governor wants the Department of Transportation to use $10 million from the SEIF “to identify opportunities for high-voltage transmission lines and battery storage projects along state and interstate highways.”

The focus on existing rights-of-ways could be a potential vote winter for the governor in the face of the well-organized and vehement local opposition to the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project ─ a 70-mile transmission line approved by PJM, which could run through agricultural land in the central part of the state. The fact that the project is being built by an out-of-state utility, Public Service Enterprise Group of New Jersey, has intensified community outrage.

High Bills and Data Centers

Differences between Moore and Charkoudian are more pronounced when we get to the nitty gritty of high electric bills and data centers.

Besides taking $292 million from the SEIF to balance the budget, Moore also wants to use $100 million for direct bill rebates to “Maryland families burdened by high energy costs” ─ yet another major vote winner. Both those withdrawals will leave the fund with a balance of about $164 million, according to an analysis by Inside Climate News.

What the governor doesn’t mention is that in 2025, more than $94 million in SEIF dollars went to state programs providing bill assistance to more than 70,000 low-income families, according to the Maryland Energy Administration’s 2025 report on the fund. Projected spending for bill assistance programs in 2026 is $150 million. Whether Moore’s rebates would go to upper-income households that really do not need them is unclear.

While Moore’s bill is mum on data centers, the governor signed onto President Donald Trump’s recent proposal that PJM hold a one-time emergency auction to deliver more long-term “baseload” power for data centers across its service territory ─ wording that assumes a traditional reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear.

Charkoudian tackles the data center dilemma in in her fourth bill, which proposes multiple strategies ─ and a preference for clean energy ─ to protect consumers from paying for any new generation or power lines needed to connect these megawatt-guzzling facilities to the grid.

The bill is being finalized, but according to a fact sheet from Charkoudian’s office, the core provisions include:

• • Accelerated permitting and interconnection for new data centers or other large loads that supply 100% of their power.
  • A voluntary demand response program for large load customers ─ defined as any facility with a demand of 25 MW or more.
  • An inventory of surplus interconnection capacity in the state, conducted by the Maryland Energy Administration. The information gathered by MEA “will be shared with large load customers who can then use this surplus interconnection to build new battery storage or other zero-emission resources to avoid having to go through the PJM queue,” according to a fact sheet on the bill.
  • A requirement for all new large load customers seeking interconnection in Maryland to cover the capacity for at least 25% of their power demand with either behind-the-meter resources, storage or carbon-free power.
  • A community benefit fee of $1,000/MW to be paid by any large load project applying for interconnection in Maryland. The fee would cover the cost of interconnection studies and be used to provide consumers with assistance for high utility bills and energy-efficient home upgrades.

Both Moore and Charkoudian appear to be moving in the same direction, tackling critical challenges for the state ─ in this case, how to develop a reliable, affordable electric power system with growing amounts of clean energy, an optimized, flexible grid and various pathways for data centers and other large loads to get the power they need.

Charkoudian tends to go big, ambitious and strategic on the bills she introduces, while Moore is smart, but perhaps a bit more cautious, with an eye on the election and Maryland’s mix of liberal and more conservative voters. Pressure from the White House, PJM, utilities and hyperscalers will be intense.

The challenge ahead for both will be getting their bills through a legislature that, even with a large Democratic majority, leans toward consensus, watering down more liberal bills with cuts, rewrites and amendments ─ or letting them die in committee.

In other words, the fate of clean energy, data centers and utility bills in Maryland and other PJM states will depend on the difficult, frustrating but absolutely vital process of making laws in a democratic society, with a free, independent press looking on. Thank goodness, in Maryland, we still have both.