Operations
BGE's electric service territory includes Baltimore City and all part of the Central Maryland counties including: Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Calvert, Carroll, Harford, and Howard counties
BGE is a member of two shared-crew networks in the southeast and mid-Atlantic regions, and frequently sends crews to help restore power to customers across those regions after severe weather events.[16] The utility has dealt with major outages following meteorological events in the mid-Atlantic region, including the June 2012 derecho and Hurricane Sandy in October of the same year. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, BGE restored power to more than 300,000 customers.[17] The utility has proposed the construction and operation of microgrids, capable of generating and distributing electricity during larger outages to the centralized electrical grid;[18] however, in July 2016, the Maryland Public Service Commission rejected BGE's request to construct microgrids.
In 2012, the company began replacing analog electric meters with smart meters to create a less expensive grid system. In June 2016, the Maryland Public Service Commission turned down BGE's request for a rate increase to recover the $48 million cost of installing smart meters, granting them instead an increase that was only 50% of what the utility requested.[19] The $2.80 rate increase went into effect in June 2016 and raised BGE customers’ average electric bill to $134.33 per month.
In October 2015, BGE filed a lawsuit against the city of Baltimore over the city's attempt to increase the fee it charges the utility for the use of its underground conduit system.[20] In November 2016, BGE and the city settled the suit, with the utility accepting an increase to $24 million a year to use the city's 741 mile long conduit system.[21]
