FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 16, 2025
CONTACT
Tim Whitehouse, 240-234-2453, twhitehouse@peer.org
Senay Emmanuel, 206-618-9015
Maryland’s Renewable Electricity Program Fails to Deliver
State’s Premier Climate Program in Need of Reform
Washington, DC — Design flaws in Maryland’s renewable electricity program will keep the state from meeting its 2030 renewable energy goals while costing ratepayers billions of dollars, according to a new report issued by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The report, Unbundled: Fixing Maryland’s Broken Renewable Portfolio Standard, finds that without meaningful reforms, the cost of the state’s premier climate change program will rise significantly while failing to deliver meaningful economic, health, and clean energy benefits to Maryland.
Since 2008, Maryland has sought to increase the percentage of renewable electricity used in the state through the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) program. The report examined the state’s reliance on using poorly defined unbundled renewable energy credits, called RECs, in the RPS program to subsidize onshore wind, biomass, waste-to-energy, biogas landfill gas, and other fuel sources in a 21-state area. These energy sources make up the bulk of Maryland’s RPS program.
The report did not examine solar, geothermal, or offshore wind incentives, which operate under different rules.
The report finds that:
- In 2022, only about 7 percent of Maryland’s electricity supply came from renewable sources, as defined by Maryland law, even though the RPS goal is to have 32.6 percent of electricity from renewable sources in 2024 and 52.5 percent by 2030.*
- Despite these minimal gains, Maryland ratepayers have already spent close to $1 billion subsidizing non-solar renewable energy sources since 2008, and they will likely spend close to $4 billion supporting the RPS by 2030.
- Only 11 percent of the subsidies examined in the report went to facilities in Maryland, while the rest went to facilities in other states. Fifty-six percent of these subsidies went to support facilities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, even though these facilities are not required to supply renewable electricity to Maryland in return for these subsidies.
“As Maryland considers ambitious new climate goals, the General Assembly must make reforms to the state’s renewable electricity program a priority,” says Tim Whitehouse, Executive Director of PEER and one of the report’s authors. “The program is clearly hurting Maryland consumers and not delivering the promised economic benefits to the state.”
“Maryland’s RPS program continues to subsidize dirty energy sources, such incineration and the burning of wood waste,” says Senay Emmanuel, a climate consultant and co-author of the report. “With climate change accelerating, Maryland needs to focus on incentivizing real clean energy sources in the state that benefit people and the planet.”
The report recommends requiring energy providers to purchase more real clean, renewable energy instead of relying exclusively on the use of poorly defined unbundled RECs, strengthening the eligibility requirements for RECs to provide greater incentives for actual clean energy production, and working toward market harmonization for renewable electricity with other neighboring states to the extent practicable.
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Read how Maryland Is Wasting Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Subsidizing Trash Incineration
Read how Maryland Ratepayers Subsidize Polluting Energy at Premium Prices
*This bullet was edited to clarify that the 7 percent was from 2022. The most recent data indicates about 13 percent of Maryland’s electricity supply comes from renewables.