Author: Ronald Bethea 10/26/2026 PCPC Podcast -Radio-TV Network
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Long term impacts stall in the PJM interconnection queue, Maryland Community Solar
Meeting summary Quick recap
Ronald Bethea hosted “Solar Now and the Future with its economic impact on Black America” to discuss problems created by the PJM (PJM Interconnection) regulatory authority’s impacts on renewable energy projects and community solar programs. He explained how PJM’s decision to keep the queue closed for eight years (2016-2024) during the Biden-Harris administration prevented the development of renewable energy projects, resulting in a $16 billion rate hike for 67 million ratepayers across 13 states and the District of Columbia.
Ronald discussed how his Positive Change Purchasing Cooperative launched an advertising and marketing campaign targeting the Pepco and BG&E service territories in Maryland and the District of Columbia, but was informed they could no longer register people in the Pepco territory despite other companies still being able to enroll customers there.
He highlighted the disconnect between being told no capacity was available while other companies could still sign up participants, questioned why the PJM structure with 509 voting members majority vested in fossil fuel companies hindered renewable energy development, and called for public hearings to address the bottleneck created by closed solar project queues.
Ronald also shared information about renewable portfolio standard pass-through costs, noting that Maryland ratepayers paid $438 million in fiscal year 2022, Virginia paid $609 million over multiple years, and District of Columbia paid $272.6 million in fiscal year 2025.
The PJM interconnection usually just called “PJM” is the organization responsible for operation the electric system (grid) supplying power to 67 million people who live in 13 states and The District of Columbia.
When solar projects stall in the PJM interconnection queue, Maryland Community Solar programs struggle to connect to the grid. This backlog limits the supply available solar generation causing subscriber organizations to hit a developmental bottleneck, thereby restricting consumers access, delaying financial saving and hindering state clean energy targets.
Community Solar Capacity brake down into four categories
- Open
- Small Brownfield’s
- LMI
- Very Small
- These four capacity categories belong to the Maryland Community Solar Pilot Program, which is administered by the Maryland Public Service Commission.
- The maximum allowable size for any individual project in the program is 2 MW (AC). The capacity size and criteria breakdown for each category are detailed below:
| Category | Capacity Size & Siting Criteria |
| Open | Projects of any size up to 2 MW (AC) without specific geographic or socioeconomic sourcing restrictions. |
| Small / Brownfield / Other (SBO) | Projects up to 500 kW (AC), or projects built on preferred locations like brownfields, rooftops, parking lots, roadways, and parking structures. |
Key Territory Profiles
- BGE: Serves over 1.3 million electricity customers in their electrical service territory and 700,000 natural gas customers.
- All of: Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Anne Arundel County.
- Most of: Howard, Carroll, and Harford Counties.
- Parts of: Prince George’s, Montgomery, and Calvert Counties
Estimated LMI Baseline 30 -40% Central MD households are LMI. According to US Census data indicates that 42% qualify as low to moderate income.
- Delmarva Power: 532,000 – 561,000 electricity customer rate payers.
- Maryland Customers: 208,000 electricity customer rate payers.
- Delaware Customers: 312,000 to 344,000 electricity customer rate payers.
Spans a 5,000-square-mile territory across the Delmarva Peninsula. This covers the vast majority of Delaware and the Upper and Lower Eastern Shore regions of Maryland (including Harford, Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne’s, Talbot, Caroline, Dorchester, Somerset, Worcester, and Wicomico counties).
(Note: Delmarva also serves about 138,000–140,000 natural gas customers, but those are exclusively located in northern Delaware and are not counted in the electric ratepayer totals above).
- Potomac Edison (FirstEnergy group, founded 1922; serves 400,000+ customers in MD and WV). Service Area: Western Maryland.
- 285,000 Maryland customers in the western and parts of central Maryland (including Allegany, Washington, and Frederick counties, plus sections of Carroll, Howard, and Montgomery counties
- Regional customers Non-Maryland customers 115,00 customers in West Virginia
PEPCO: Washington DC service area residential and business totaling 318,000 residential accounts. About 30,294 to 33,119 of these residential customers get or receive electricity power from third- party retail supplies.
Broader PEPCO Territory: Serves 900,000 electricity customers combined. With half of the 600,000 electricity rate payers living in suburban Maryland Montogomery and PG County around 300,000 rate payers in each county with a very large LMI household rates.
This is the website I got the spreadsheet from
https://energy.maryland.gov/Pages/MarylandCommunitySolar.aspx
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