Maryland Senate debates trio of energy bills focused on reducing utility prices

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland's Senate spent Monday night and most of Tuesday debating a trio of energy bills aimed at transforming how the state approaches energy generation.

"We need to generate more in-state generation," said Senator Brian Feldman, a Democrat from Montgomery County.

The most transformative piece of legislation in the package is the Next Generation Energy Act.

Among the actions of the bill is sending money to ratepayers during the peak months of energy usage.

According to estimates, the average residential ratepayer will get $40. However, the more you use the more you get.

Republicans say the payments are just giving customers their money back.

"What we're hearing, why we're getting a lot of phone calls and emails is not because somebody's bill went up 40 dollars, but it went up multiple hundreds of dollars," said Senator Steve Hershey, the Senate Minority Leader.

Democrats say this will help everyone during the next round of high bills.

"Every single dollar counts, any time we're able to put this kind of money back into the hands of ratepayers we want to do that," said Senator Malcolm Augustine who defended the bill on the floor of the Senate.

The act also included ending the multi-year-rate-plan but the committee opted to limit the energy companies so they can't come back for more money during the agreed upon plan.

The long term goal is to get more energy generation in Maryland, hoping to reduce energy prices in Maryland.

We asked Senate President Bill Ferguson when new energy generation could be seen in Maryland.

"Hopefully we will see for tier one renewables and battery and solar, which are fast, that we will see them in an immediate that they will be able to move those projects forward at a faster clip -- in the next six months to a year we can see those coming online," said Ferguson.

Senator Katie Fry Hester sponsors a bill to establish a state energy planning office. Republicans took issue with the length of time given for the state plan to be developed, the bill allows for 3 1/2 years.

Hester conceded she wants the plan done sooner and offered an amendment to get more information from PJM sooner for better energy planning.

A solar energy bill sparks Republican concerns over using rural farmland in their districts for power generation.

"We are talking about utility scale solar that is eating up much of the agricultural fields and lands especially in the eastern shore of Maryland," said Hershey.

Those for the bill say it limits the amount of solar generation in one county to a max of 5% of the counties land. Currently there is no limit on the amount of land that can be solar.

"We need generation, respect the Ag farming community and that's how we came to this 5% number," said Senator Brian Feldman.

The Senate president expects that the energy package will make it to the governor's desk by the end of session.