Description
The Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC), through Order No. 9482, found that the use of multi-year rate plans (MYPs) had the potential to be in the public interest and announced that any electric and/or gas utility may submit a proposal to serve as the Pilot Utility. In response, Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE) filed a MYP for its combined gas and electric services that sought to increase revenues by $235.5 million over a three- year period. Included in the revenue requirement were $2.87 billion in capital investments that were reflected in the rate base for the MYP's three future test years. The Maryland Office of People's Counsel (OPC) required an expert witness to review these capital projects and provide recommendations on their reasonableness and prudency.
Service Provided
DHInfrastructure staff evaluated all projects and categories of investments planned by BGE and the justification used to support the investment plans. As part of this review, we compared the average budgets by project/program to recent historic spend and then evaluated whether BGE had demonstrated in the record why a budget increase was necessary. DHInfrastructure also evaluated gas and shared capital budgets proposed for the MYP. We provided recommendations on adjustments to the MYP budgets for various projects where BGE had not sufficiently demonstrated the need for a budget increase.