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Washington Gas warns Pepco program changes could shift projects; advocates urge end to gas appliance incentives
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Summary
Washington Gas accused Pepco of changing its custom‑program terms to claim gas‑savings GHG reductions, warning the Commission that the move could shift projects away from the gas utility; advocates urged the PSC to end incentives for new gas appliances.
A sharp dispute over who may claim greenhouse‑gas reductions from dual‑fuel projects surfaced at the Public Service Commission hearing, with Washington Gas urging Commission intervention and consumer advocates urging an end to incentives for new natural‑gas appliances.
Washington Gas executives said they discovered in April that Pepco’s custom program technical sheet had introduced per‑therm incentives and language asserting sole rights to claim GHG reductions associated with gas savings. “In April 2025, WGL discovered PEPCO had published an updated custom program technical sheet, offering $1.70 per therm for gas savings and revised its terms and conditions to assert sole rights to claim GHG reductions from gas measures,” Washington Gas counsel John Richards said. WGL argued that the unilateral change could draw custom projects into Pepco’s pipeline and “jeopardize the company's ability to meet statutory GHG targets.”
Pepco officials said their custom program is designed to deliver lifecycle greenhouse‑gas reductions and that they proposed a percentage allocation approach for dual‑fuel projects; they said the utility is open to continued bilateral and work‑group discussion. “We proposed a program based on percentage allocation so projects with more gas savings would be claimed by the gas utility and projects with more electric savings by the electric utility,” Pepco’s representative said on the record.
The Office of People’s Counsel and consultant VEIC urged a different outcome: they told the Commission that WGL could meet statutory GHG goals without ratepayer‑funded incentives for new gas appliances and that continuing those incentives risks locking customers into long‑lived gas equipment and future stranded‑cost burdens. OPC recommended eliminating incentives for new gas appliances with limited, stakeholder‑defined exceptions and asked the Commission to convene a work group to identify those exceptions.
PSC staff said the General Assembly had not explicitly banned gas appliance incentives under the EMPOWER statute and recommended retaining incentives through the current program cycle while urging further study and targeted stakeholder work groups. Staff also warned that, if incentives are removed, Washington Gas’s statutory targets and cost forecasts would need reassessment.
Commissioners directed staff and the future‑programming work group to discuss attribution and claiming rules; both sides agreed that a formal stakeholder process — rather than immediate unilateral action — is the appropriate next step.
