Smart Grid: BG&E to Move Ahead With Smart Meter Rollout, Despite Regulator Rejection of Upfront Surcharge - Smart Grid News

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BG&E to Move Ahead With Smart Meter Rollout, Despite Regulator Rejection of Upfront Surcharge
By SGN Staff
Aug 16, 2010 - 2:21:54 PM

Baltimore Gas & Electric (BG&E) will go ahead with its ambitious smart meter rollout, despite being told by Maryland regulators late Friday that the utility could not assess an upfront surcharge to help pay for the $835 million project. Instead, regulators said BG&E must wait until the project is complete before it can recover its costs. As reported earlier, the utility had said it might drop its proposal if the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) rejected the surcharge. But BG&E officials apparently thought better of scrapping the program, and announced Monday that the utility will move ahead with it. "Although the commission chose a different regulatory method than we proposed, we will work with the commission to find ways to better align the benefits and costs of the project while mitigating the potential for a rate spike at the end of deployment," said Kenneth W. DeFontes Jr., BG&E president and CEO. BG&E had won a $200 million Smart Grid stimulus grant to help pay project costs, which it would have lost if it had been unable to make a quick decision. The utility has said the grant will cut costs to customers by 80%.

Quick Take: After regulators left the ball squarely in BG&E's court Friday, it's good to see that the utility has decided to run with it and move forward with the deployment.