If you live in Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.’s service area, I don’t need to tell you — gas bills are through the roof.

Our bills are going up — and so are BGE profits. Via the STRIDE Act, our state legislature has allowed BGE to charge customers billions on upgrades to the gas system. Our distribution charges, essentially what BGE charges to deliver the gas, are up 50% from 2020, rising at three times the inflation rate. For Washington Gas utility customers, distribution charges are following the inflation rate trend, so they pay half the delivery rate for gas that BGE customers do. We are getting a bad deal, authorized by our lawmakers.

I’ve lived in my 1910s Baltimore City home since 2013, and my energy bills are as expensive as any previous year, but I am now paying BGE nearly twice as much to deliver the gas than for the gas itself. We have made significant investments in energy efficiency upgrades in our home, from replacing leaky windows and doors to upgrading to a highly efficient heat pump water heater. So while our house has become more efficient, our bills remain just as high.

I am ready to take the next step, and this is the year to do it. This summer I’ll be disconnecting my gas line. I’m done with the relentlessly escalating bills. I will be getting rid of my gas furnace to install a heat pump heating and cooling system. I’m an engineer, so I’ve done the math. Running a heat pump will cost 22% less than a furnace at current utility rates. I won’t bore you with the details here (feel free to reach out if you want them), but a heat pump is about four times more efficient than a gas furnace, and even with a complicated and expensive installation for my old home, it makes good financial sense. With rising electricity and gas costs, it will only make more and more financial sense over time.

The Maryland Commission on Climate Change 2021 year-end report projects that over the next 20 years, gas bills could rise by a factor of 10 while electric rates could rise by 40%. Even if the projection is off by a wide margin, the cost to run a furnace in 2045 is going to be incredibly high compared with a heat pump. Heat pumps are also far less polluting. They don’t burn gas so I will contribute to better local air quality. And because of how efficient they are, heat pumps release far less CO2 and other pollution from power generation.

New state and federal incentives will pay the bulk of the cost for the upgrade, making this an even more cost-effective choice. Empower Maryland now incentivizes heat pump conversions. In all, tax credits and rebates will cover more than the cost of an average heat pump conversion and will cover a good portion of my more complex replacement.

My family is lucky that we can afford to spend the money up front and wait for rebates and tax incentives.

For those who don’t have this luxury, there are several local and state loan programs that work for low- and moderate-income homeowners, some of which are funded by Empower Maryland, the state’s energy efficiency program. Some contractors also offer 0% loans to allow customers time to wait for the rebates to come through. I hope the state will do more to help low-income families make the switch.

I’m an engineer with more than 20 years of experience designing commercial HVAC systems. I’ve designed heat pump systems for buildings ranging from schools to industrial buildings. Modern heat pumps perform well in Maryland’s climate.

They no longer need backup “emergency heat” during the coldest days of the year. Today’s heat pumps, known as “inverter-driven compressors,” cold climate heat pumps, mini-split technology or some variation of “hyper-heat” are very efficient and effective. They are also one of the most flexible systems to install in any house. In short, if a contractor tells you heat pumps don’t work in Maryland temperatures, get a different contractor.

This winter’s bills and gas customer charges have been my last straw. I hope you can join me in making 2025 the year you switch to a heat pump and drop your gas service.

Ben Roush (benr@fsi-engineers.com) is a mechanical engineer living in Baltimore.