Baltimore Gas and Electric is asking state regulators to let it turn customers’ homes, cars, and gadgets into a single virtual power plant, pitching a two-year pilot that it says could cut peak demand and ease the strain on Maryland’s electric grid. The proposal, filed in a state regulatory case and now up for review at hearings this week, would pay customers who agree to let BGE temporarily adjust how certain devices use power during periods of high demand.
Virtual power plants, or VPPs, pull together lots of small energy resources such as rooftop solar, home batteries, smart thermostats, and bidirectional EV chargers so they can operate like a flexible power plant when the grid is stressed. BGE’s plan is designed to test whether a fleet of customer devices, working in sync, can reduce expensive wholesale power purchases and trim peak-related costs for everyone on the system. As an overview, RMI notes that VPPs can provide both demand reduction and reserve services to utilities.
DRIVE Act pushed utilities to act
Maryland’s 2024 DRIVE Act instructed investor-owned utilities to create pilot programs that compensate owners and aggregators of distributed energy resources for supporting the distribution grid, including vehicle-to-grid demonstrations. State and industry analyses say the law set a tight timeline and pressed utilities to propose scalable pilots that emphasize broad enrollment and equitable access. The DRIVE framework is intended to cut system costs and boost reliability by calling on customer-owned assets during peak events. For context, POWER’s VPP report summarizes the DRIVE Act’s goals and the role VPP pilots are expected to play in state policy.
What BGE filed with regulators
BGE submitted its Virtual Power Plant Pilot Program, along with related time-of-use rate changes, in the Maryland Public Service Commission docket (Case No. 9761) last year. The filing outlines a two-year pilot that would test several enrollment models, including utility-owned batteries for medically vulnerable customers, customer-owned storage and EVs, and participation by third-party aggregators, in order to see which approach reduces peak loads most cost-effectively. The docket also includes dozens of stakeholder comments and technical submissions as the PSC weighs whether to approve the plan as filed or require revisions. See the Maryland Public Service Commission docket for filings and agendas.
How customers might participate
Under BGE’s proposal, customers could opt into the program and earn incentives for allowing the utility to briefly curtail or shift usage from participating devices during peak events, while keeping day-to-day control over their equipment. The utility points to existing VPP efforts in California and Puerto Rico as evidence that these programs can maintain reliability and help avoid outages. Nationwide examples include large VPPs and bidirectional EV demonstrations run by companies such as Sunrun, and BGE has separately proposed a pilot to install no-cost batteries for medically vulnerable residents that would plug into an aggregated VPP. Coverage from Sunrun and Solar Power World outlines those precedents and the proposed medically vulnerable battery pilot.
Next steps at the PSC…