Exelon announced Wednesday that it intends to purchase Pepco, the utility that provides electricity to Montgomery County, for $6.8 billion.
Chicago-based Exelon has operations in 47 states and is the largest competitive U.S. power generator. It operates Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), which it purchased in 2012. So what would the company’s Pepco purchase mean for local customers?
It could be an opportunity to improve local service, says Roger Berliner, the District 1 county council member and an energy lawyer who has criticized Pepco in the past.
“Exelon has a better track record than Pepco in terms of reliability,” said Berliner, who noted that Pepco was in the lowest quartile nationally in reliability for five years in a row. “It’s hard to get a lot worse than that.”
Berliner said the sale still needs to be approved by the Maryland Public Service Commission.
“My hope and my request of our commission is that they condition their approval for this sale on a firm commitment from Exelon to raise the quality of service to the top quartile nationally,” Berliner said. “I’ve always felt that our region, our residents, particularly in Montgomery County, cannot be unplugged. It must have a utility that performs on the highest level.”
Pepco received harsh criticism after a 2012 derecho left more than 400,000 customers without power in the District and Maryland. In 2011, the utility was fined $1 million by the Public Service Commission for failing to keep up with tree trimming and other preventative maintenance.
The Washington Post reported that after Exelon bought BGE in 2012, customers said they didn’t notice any changes in service. The paper also noted that Exelon’s larger stable of repair teams may be able to react to outages more quickly than Pepco.
But what about the sheer size of Exelon, would that create problems for local customers?
“Anytime you have such a dominant player, you need a very strong regulator as a counterweight,” Berliner said. “We have not had that in the past. Our regulatory agency is going to have to step up its game.”