With PJM Interconnection executives meeting just a few floors away, local leaders, environmental advocates, and elected officials rallied outside the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront on Monday, turning up the heat over rising electricity bills. Speakers blamed the regional grid operator’s market rules for the spike, arguing that PJM’s capacity market and sluggish interconnection process are propping up older fossil-fuel plants, keeping cheaper clean energy on the sidelines and leaving Maryland households to pick up the tab. The protest was timed to coincide with PJM’s three-day annual meeting in Baltimore.
The midday press conference and rally were organized by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, which billed the event as a chance to press PJM on why it is still prioritizing fossil fuels, according to Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Organizers said they were calling on PJM to move faster on interconnection reforms and clear more clean energy projects onto the grid, rather than continuing payment structures that, in their view, favor aging plants.
Study: Faster Clean Energy Buildout Could Trim About $500 A Year
Rally leaders pointed to a recent analysis that modeled how changing PJM’s interconnection process could affect both the resource mix and customer bills. A report from Synapse Energy Economics found that opening the door wider for clean energy would cut average residential costs by about $505 per household over the 2025 to 2040 period. For Maryland specifically, the analysis estimated average annual savings of roughly $546 per household under a reform scenario.
PJM’s Price Collar And The $27 Billion Question
In February, PJM’s board voted to extend a temporary price collar on its capacity market through the 2029/2030 delivery year, a decision Maryland officials say could help head off future rate spikes. Governor Wes Moore hailed the move, saying the extended cap prevents billions in unnecessary costs from being passed down to our residents, according to a statement from the governor's office. Citing PJM estimates, the governor’s office says the extension could save consumers about $27 billion by the end of the decade. PJM has submitted related tariff changes to federal regulators, and the matter now sits with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Costly RMR Deals Keep Two Aging Plants Running
Activists also pointed to a concrete example of how reliability measures can come with a hefty price tag. Talen Energy says a reliability-must-run, or RMR, settlement effective January 2025 will keep the Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner plants operating through May 2029, with fixed payments of about $145 million and $35 million a year, respectively. The arrangement was detailed by Talen Energy in company filings with investors. Protesters say deals like this show how existing market rules can steer hundreds of millions of dollars toward older fossil-fuel assets, a critique covered by local outlets including CBS Baltimore.
What PJM And Regulators Say, And What Comes Next
PJM maintains that the price collar offers near-term protection for consumers while the grid operator and member states work through longer-term market reforms and reliability backstops. Company representatives are taking stakeholder input during the Baltimore annual meeting as part of that process. The broader policy fight is now unfolding in federal filings and public comments in FERC Docket ER26-1556, where state agencies, the independent market monitor, and consumer advocates have already submitted briefs and responses, according to documents tracked by Monitoring Analytics.
Bottom Line For Maryland Households
The standoff outside PJM’s conference highlights a growing tension in Maryland energy politics. Advocates are pushing hard for faster interconnection, renewables, and battery storage in order to drive bills down, while PJM and utilities stress that reliability constraints still limit how quickly the system can change. For now, Marylanders are left with a mix of short-term protections and a longer-running battle over how wholesale market rules, transmission upgrades, and reliability contracts should be recalibrated so that customers pay less over time.
