Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE) is a subsidiary of the Exelon Corporation and Maryland's largest gas and electric utility. BGE earlier had created the holding company Constellation Energy in 1999. Constellation Energy was acquired by Exelon in 2012.
Headquartered in Baltimore, BGE provides service to more than 1.2 million electric customers and more than 650,000 natural gas customers in central Maryland. BGE employs 3,100 people in the state of Maryland, making the company one of the 15 largest private employers in the region.
Video Baltimore Gas and Electric
History
Artist / sculptor /museum operator Rembrandt Peale, (1778-1860), incorporated the "Gas Light Company of Baltimore" on June 17, 1816, after having exhibited gas lighting at his Holliday Street museum which was designed by famed local architect Robert Cary Long, Jr., built and opened in 1814 (between East Saratoga and East Lexington Streets - after a variety of uses including as Baltimore's City Hall, 1830-1875, later in 1931 to become the Municipal Museum of the City of Baltimore, popularly known once again as the Peale Museum into 1997) ; this was the first gas company in the Americas. The first streetlamp installed by the Gas Light Company of Baltimore stood at the corner of North Holliday and East Baltimore streets and was lit on February 7th, 1817. By February 1818, only 28 gas-lit lamps existed. The Belvidere Theatre became the first public building to be lit using gas. Over the next decades the company experimented with piping, meters, and other mechanical technology. Baltimore committed to gas for municipal use, including the installation of gas service in all public markets between by 1851. Private subscription also steadily increased; by 1870, the company had 15,301 customers in Baltimore.
In 1955, the company rebranded to become Baltimore Gas and Electric, and began to recognize the acronym BGE sometime during the 1990s.
The Maryland Public Service Commission approved the merger of Exelon and Pepco Holdings (former Potomac Electric Power Company for Washington, D.C. and its surrounding suburbs in the north in Maryland and to the south in Virginia, encompassing a metropolitan area) in May 2015; their approval was required due to BGE's subsidiary status relative to Exelon. The merger, which would set Exelon as the controlling interest for 80% of Maryland's consumer electricity market, has been met with significant opposition within Maryland due to concerns over the potential for major electricity cost increases.
Maps Baltimore Gas and Electric
Operations
BGE's electric service territory includes Baltimore City and all or part of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Calvert, Carroll, Harford, Howard, Montgomery, and Prince George's counties.
BGE is a member of two shared-crew networks in the southeast and mid-Atlantic regions, and frequently sends crews to help restore power to customers across those regions after severe weather events. The utility has dealt with major outages following meteorological events in the mid-Atlantic region, including the derecho of June 2012 and Hurricane Sandy in October of the same year. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, BGE restored power to more than 300,000 customers. The utility has proposed the construction and operation of microgrids, capable of generating and distributing electricity during larger outages to the centralized electrical grid; however, in July 2016, the Maryland Public Service Commission rejected BGE's request to construct microgrids.
In 2012, the company began replacing analog electric meters with smart meters to create a more cost effective smart grid system. In June 2016, the Maryland Public Service Commission turned down BGE's request for a rate increase to recover the $48 million cost of installing smart meters, granting them instead an increase that was only 50% of what the utility requested. The $2.80 rate increase went into effect in June 2016 and raised BGE customers' average electric bill to $134.33 per month.
In October 2015, BGE filed a lawsuit against the city of Baltimore over the city's attempt to increase the fee it charges the utility for the use of its underground conduit system. In November 2016, BGE and the city settled the suit, with the utility accepting an increase to $24 million a year to use the city's 741 miles (1,193 km) long conduit system.
Community
BGE employees volunteered 25,000 hours of labor in 2013.
Through its Green Grants program, BGE offers grants of up to $10,000 to environmental non-profits in central Maryland. Since 2013, the company has awarded more than $1 million through the program. Past recipients include:
- 4-H Chesapeake Bay Stewards Program
- Project Clean Stream and Clean Water Communities
- Rainscape and Environmental Educational Program
- Bio-science Educational Program and Outreach
- Fall Free Tree Giveaway
- Increasing Tree Canopy Projects
- Recycling days
- Neighborhood Beautification
- A Green Place to Play
- Community Wildlife Habitat
- Fresh Fruit Farm
In 2015, BGE launched a program that allows customers to report osprey nests on or near electrical lines. The company then insulates or moves the nest to platforms. In the program's first year, learned of 23 nests built on electrical equipment.
As part of BGE's bicentennial celebration in 2016, the company added large, decorative murals to the three large storage tanks on its Spring Gardens campus in south Baltimore. BGE also partnered with the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation in 2016 to construct Eddie Murray Field in west Baltimore.
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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