A PPL EnergyPlus executive testified before the Maryland Public Service Commission recently about the threat to electricity users and the competitive market from a plan to request proposals for state-subsidized generation projects.
Gene Alessandrini, senior vice president of Marketing for PPL EnergyPlus, stressed that the competitive market in Maryland is supplying, and will continue to supply, the electricity resources that customers in that state need in the most efficient and lowest-cost manner. Alessandrini emphasized that the competitive market is working in Maryland.
Close to a half million Maryland residents and businesses have chosen competitive energy suppliers, which is nearly a 300 percent increase since 2008. In addition, over that period, default service rates in Maryland have declined by almost 30 percent.
Alessandrini offered strong words of caution about the state interfering with the competitive market by subsidizing “unnecessary and uneconomical” new generation. “Subsidized generation will cost consumers more than available market alternatives, will discourage new investment and will reduce the options currently available to consumers by raising prices charged by competitive suppliers and electric distribution companies,” said Alessandrini.
PPL EnergyPlus is one of 24 registered competitive suppliers in the state. PPL EnergyPlus enetered the retail market in Maryland in 2011 and has recently expanded its offerings in BGE service territory.
In addition, PPL's generation affiliate, a separate company from PPL EnergyPlus, is in the midst of one of the largest hydroelectric expansion projects in the country at Holtwood, Pennsylvania, just north of the Maryland border, which will serve as a source of clean, renewable energy for Maryland and the PJM region when it goes online in 2013.
