Exelon's power plant comeback plan is running into Maryland's ratepayer wall
Exelon pledged to return $160 million in Maryland tax refunds this week while its bill letting utilities build power plants on customer bills waits in Annapolis. A year of regulatory cuts says the ceiling on bills, not AI demand, decides who profits.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
A refund and a burial in the same week
Exelon spent the last days of September pledging to return $160 million of Maryland tax refunds to its customers: $110 million to BGE households, $30 million to Pepco's and $20 million to Delmarva Power's 1. Days later, on 1 October, the state's Public Service Commission ended a six-year experiment that let those utilities set rates on three-year spending forecasts, finding no clear benefit for customers 2. The money lands on stretched households: 300,000 BGE customers were behind on their bills in June 3.
The bill that would put customers in the generation business
The refund is the polite half of Exelon's Maryland year. In February, Senator Kevin Harris filed the company's "Affordable Energy Act" as its lone sponsor, hours before a procedural deadline, after weeks of lobbying found no one else to carry it 4. It would have regulators direct at least one utility to build new generation, reversing decades of state policy, with cost plus a return recovered from customer bills; crossed-out draft text would have allowed natural gas, leaving battery storage and state-approved renewables 4. Constellation, Maryland's single largest generator, says BGE wants a guaranteed return "whether or not that investment is in the best interests of Maryland ratepayers" 4. Senate President Bill Ferguson reports "a level of skepticism" 4.
Maryland spent 2026 lowering the ceiling
Every other branch of the state spent the year cutting the ceiling that bill must clear. The Utility RELIEF Act, signed 12 May, bars mid-cycle rate reconciliations and makes data center developers fund their own grid upgrades, saving households an estimated $150 a year or more 2. In August the commission granted Pepco $50.9 million of its $119.9 million request and disallowed $164.9 million of substation spending as not prudent 5. A BGE increase near $8 a month is still pending 1.
Maryland regulators approved about half of Exelon's last three big asks
- Requested
- Approved
Data
| Requested | Approved | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| BGE true-up, Dec 2025 | 152.30 | 77.20 | -49.3% |
| Pepco true-up, Mar 2026 | 30.60 | 13.36 | -56.3% |
| Pepco rate case, Aug 2026 | 119.90 | 50.90 | -57.5% |
A new asset class for Exelon, a turf war for Constellation
The prize is a second growth engine for a company already spending more than $2 billion a quarter on its wires, peaking at $2.4 billion late last year 6. Constellation's merchant fleet, the incumbent Exelon would reenter against, earned $2.3 billion of operating income in the first quarter of 2026 alone 7. Governor Wes Moore set the political weather in August: "utilities should not earn unreasonable profits while everyday Marylanders can't afford to pay their power bills" 5.
Exelon's quarterly capex has climbed toward $2.5 billion
Data
| Capex | |
|---|---|
| Q3 '24 | $1.7B |
| Q4 '24 | $1.94B |
| Q1 '25 | $1.95B |
| Q2 '25 | $2.01B |
| Q3 '25 | $2.14B |
| Q4 '25 | $2.43B |
| Q1 '26 | $2.36B |
| Q2 '26 | $2.2B |
At FERC, the same fight over a $1 letter of credit
Who finances AI's power is contested federally too. On 22 September, FERC rejected ComEd's attempt to cancel a transmission agreement behind a 1.8-gigawatt, $20 billion PowerHouse Hillwood data center in Joliet, whose initial credit support was a $1 letter of credit, "an embarrassing legal fiction" by Commissioner David LaCerte's account 8. FERC left the lawsuit to the courts and set a mid-November deadline for grid operators to answer its show-cause orders on large-load rules 89.
A rate order, a FERC deadline and a stalled bill
No report this desk could reach covers the Harris bill's fate after its 10 February filing; Exelon's chief executive was still publicly calling for utilities to generate power again in late August 10. The tells are the pending BGE rate order and the mid-November FERC filings. The demand is arriving at machine speed. The permission arrives at the speed of a rate case.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
