The tidal wave of data centers flooding onto our grid is a major reason why energy bills are going up. A recent report from Monitoring Analytics found that data centers are currently costing customers on Maryland’s regional grid over $9 billion in increased energy costs annually.

If data centers were to bring their own new clean energy it would reduce or eliminate those costs that all of us are currently paying on behalf of data center developers. Data centers bringing their own clean energy would also prevent the ungodly amount of pollution they would otherwise cause, but Getting data centers to bring their own new clean energy is now easy feat. It will require smart, effective policies both at the level of the regional PJM grid and at the state level.

I am very lucky to be joined by State Senator Katie Fry Hester who has been doing incredible work to protect consumers from potential increased of cost and pollution from data centers both at PJM and here in Maryland.

Air pollution is a significant threat to human health and well being. Particulate Matter of 2.5 micrometers and smaller, known as PM 2.5, is only one of common air pollutants and it causes 85-200 thousand deaths a year in the United States.

It has been well documented that the sources of air pollution have been concentrated in black and brown communities. NYT reporting found that Black Americans are exposed to higher levels of air pollutants from all sources, including construction emissions, power plant emissions, industrial emissions, and emissions from cars and trucks. All people of color are similar exposed to higher than average rates of pollution from all of those same sources, with the exception of power plants

I hope we can all agree that concentrating pollution sources in Black and Brown communities is wrong, but Maryland lacks sufficient legal frameworks to right that wrong. That’s why a coalition of environmental justice advocates in Maryland are pushing to pass the Cumulative Harms to Environmental Restoration for Improving our Shared Health or CHERISH Act, introduced by Delegates Behler and Johnson and Senator Brooks

To talk about why the CHERISH Act is needed and what it does, I am joined by Jennifer Kunze who is the Maryland Organizing Director at Clean Water Action and Carlos Sanchez-Gonzalez with the South Baltimore Community Land Trust

In December of 2025 a final switch was flipped and 160 megawatts of electricity started flowing onto Maryland’s grid from the biggest solar farm in the entire state, the Backbone power project in Garrett County. To give you a sense of how big 160 megawatts is, this project will produce more electricity than all the homes in Garrett County combined use in a year. When Backbone Power came online, it single handedly increased the total amount of solar power installed in Maryland by over 5%.

The project would be newsworthy just because of its size, but on top of that it also happens to be located on an old coal mine and is now providing local and state tax revenue that was lost when that coal mine closed.

This project is a great example of the tremendous benefits we get out of investing in the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard in terms of jobs, tax revenue, and instate generation, but to me it also feels like a symbol of possibility, proof in miniature that transitioning to the clean economy is possible and beneficial. To talk all about this project, the Maryland energy policies that made it possible, and what lawmakers can do to make sure more projects like this one keep coming online, I am joined by Mike Resca, the executive Vice-President of CPV Renewables, the company that developed the backbone solar project.

Among the many changes made by Speaker Pena-Melnyk is moving energy issues from the Economic Matters Committee to the Environment and Transportation Committee. This is a change represents a shift in how energy issues are contextualized, from primarily being a matter of economic development, to being about the environment.

This move sends the hot potato of energy issues to Chair Korman, who is my guest today to talk all about how he sees energy issues and what is thinking is at the start of the 2026 legislative session.

Chair Korman and Subcommittee Chairman Fraser-Hidalgo also organized a series of briefings on energy issues for their committee. The briefings are terrific and I have linked them below:

Briefing with representatives from the Texas and California grids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TmrH9_gTT4

Briefing with PJM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGgmp90GXTk

Briefing with clean energy industry and climate advocates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeQTOdRrkwY

Briefing with the Maryland Department of the Environment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq5DG5aol_0

Briefing with utilities and Constellation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VVmGE_QV-E

Briefing with the Maryland Energy Administration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWUMUyIJpX0

Briefing with the Public Service Commission and the Office of the People’s Counsel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWNtXARBAk8

Building new transmission is extremely costly and highly controversial but at the same time we know that more transmission will be needed on our electric grid as energy demand continues to grow. Is it possible for us to ensure the grid is capable of moving energy where it needs to go without breaking the bank or seizing property through eminent domain? 

The SAVINGS Act, introduced by Delegate Qi and Senator Hester, would deploy grid enhancing technologies that will allow us to get more transmission capability without building new transmission lines. To talk all about this bill, why it is necessary and how it works, I am joined by Katie Mettle who is the Policy Principal for Maryland and New Jersey at Advanced Energy United 

In his executive order on climate and energy issues in June of 2024 Governor Moore directed his agencies to design and implement a Zero-Emission Heating Equipment Standard and a Clean Heat Standard to support it. As far as policies to reduce pollution and costs for homeowners go, this is the gold standard, and I applaud Governor Moore for his leadership on this issue.

A Zero-Emission Heating Equipment Standard paired with a Clean Heat Standard has the potential to fully decarbonize almost all of Maryland’s building stock and lower energy bills in the process.

In this episode I am joined by Ruth Ann Norton who is the President of Green and Healthy Homes Initiative and Tony Sirna who is the Senior Policy Lead on Buildings for Evergreen Action to explain these policies and their benefits in detail.

Maryland has had policies to boost in-state solar generation for about two decades now, and those investments have paid off significantly. Solar accounts for 7% of the electricity Maryland generates, which is more than we generate from coal. Pennsylvania, which has practically no solar investment policy, gets only 1.25%  of their electricity from solar. Even though Pennsylvania has twice the population of Maryland and is roughly four times the size of Maryland, we still have more solar jobs in Maryland than they do in Pennsylvania

Maryland’s investments in solar are paying major dividends in the form of more in-state generation, more jobs, and lower energy costs. Solar is, of course, now the cheapest form of electricity generation and continuing to deploy it at a rapid clip is essential to meeting growing energy demand. 

Vice-Chair Charkoudian has developed a policy that will improve how Maryland invests in solar energy, allowing more solar to be built more quickly while also reducing the ratepayer impact of clean energy policies. She has, in her policy wizardry, found a way to make every dollar spent on solar go farther, to increase the number of dollars spent on solar, and simultaneously decrease the number of dollars spent on renewable energy, and by the end of this episode by god you will understand how it works. 

The solar policy that Vice-Chair Charkoudian is introducing this year and that we will be discussing today is largely the same as the solar components of her Abundant Affordable Clean Energy bill she introduced last year. While many portions of her bill got incorporated into the leadership energy package, the solar policies were left on the cutting room floor, and so she is back to finish the job.

Vice-Chair Charkoudian and I recorded this episode before the news broke that she had been named Vice-Chair of the Economic Matters Committee, so I don't use her new title in the episode.

On December 17th 2025 something happened at PJM that has never happened before. At their regularly scheduled Capacity Auction, PJM did not hit capacity. If you are like me, it’s clear to you that this is bad news, but you aren’t precisely sure what that means. To break it down and share his expertise I spoke with Bryan Dunning who is Senior Policy Analyst with Center for Progressive Reform.

Many of the buildings that make up the Baltimore Skyline are heated by an underground network of steam moved through pipes. That district heating system is owned and operated by a company called Vicinity. Right now, that steam is almost entirely generated through combustion. However, Vicinity has high hopes for transitioning to electric steam, which is a very cool name for steam generated through electricity. This has the potential to decarbonize the heating load of many large buildings without those building owners having to change anything about their buildings.

Samay Kindra who leads government affairs for Vicinity Energy talks about Vicnity’s plans to generate their steam electrically.

Whether you care about energy costs, climate change, job creation or grid reliability there is one program in Maryland that has been more successful than any other, and that is the EmPOWER Program the state’s flagship energy efficiency program. 

According to recent analysis, Every dollar invested in EmPOWER Maryland returns $1.81 in benefits for Marylanders. By reducing aggregate consumer demand for power, EmPOWER investments keep electric rates down for all of us. As a result, EmPOWER has saved Marylanders more than $4 billion on their energy bills and reduced statewide greenhouse gas emissions by at least 9.6 million metric tons.

EmPOWER is the silent workhouse of decarbonization in Maryland, consistently slashing energy bills and emissions in both the power and residential sectors year after year, one attic insulation job at a time. To talk about EmPOWER, how it works its miracles, how it has changed over time, and what benefits we can continue to expect from the program I am joined by Mike Specian who is a Research Manager at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy or ACEEE and Justin Barry who is a Director of Energy Initiatives at the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative.