Industry brief to committee: solar and storage as fastest route to ease Maryland power costs; transmission and PJM rules slow deployment
Loading...
Summary
Trade groups told the Environment and Transportation Committee that solar plus battery storage is the quickest, lowest‑cost way to reduce peak-driven electricity costs in Maryland, but developers face permitting, interconnection, transmission and federal policy barriers that state bills aim to address.
Representatives of the Chesapeake Solar and Storage Association, the Mid‑Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition and SEIA told the House Environment and Transportation Committee on Jan. 28 that accelerating deployment of solar and battery storage is the most cost‑effective near‑term strategy to blunt rising retail electricity costs in Maryland.
Panelists pointed to regional wholesale dynamics in PJM — including rising capacity auction prices and renewed load growth driven by data centers and electrification — and said those trends are raising retail bills. Robin Dutta of the Chesapeake Solar and Storage Association highlighted how reducing peak load locally can lower capacity charges and said utility‑scale solar and paired storage are among the lowest‑cost new resources.
Evan Vaughn (Mid‑Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition) said the region is not deploying resources fast enough to match demand growth and that transmission constraints are a key bottleneck. He pointed to a recent PJM capacity clearing price example (about $329 per megawatt‑day in a recent auction) and warned that insufficient transmission can make otherwise viable projects financially untenable because developers may face large upgrade cost allocations.
Leah Meredith of SEIA said federal policy changes have removed some investment incentives and introduced new supply‑chain rules and tariffs that create additional uncertainty for projects in early development; she urged the state to cut permitting and administrative red tape, improve interconnection timelines and pass low‑cost policy fixes to preserve projects coming through the pipeline.
Legislative and regulatory fixes discussed: panelists supported automating small‑scale permitting (SolarAPP+ implementation), the Sunrise and Affordable Solar bills (to ease community solar customer acquisition and extend benefits to OHEAP customers), NextGen incentives for storage procurement and items in the Renewable Energy Certainty Act for siting certainty. Panelists also asked the committee and the Public Service Commission to act on interconnection timelines and to pursue transmission planning and financing under the Power Act.
Committee members pressed for estimates of soft‑cost savings from permitting reforms; panelists said they would follow up with detailed numbers but cited attrition studies showing delays can cause roughly an 18% cancellation rate for residential projects when permitting is slow. The industry emphasized that many projects under review could be cost‑competitive now if administrative and transmission barriers were reduced.
Next steps: the panel asked lawmakers to consider the bills scheduled in the coming weeks and to coordinate state policy with federal permitting and PJM reforms to speed deployment.
