Opening up your utility bill is a pretty visceral experience these days. How much will it be? Why is it larger than last month? These good questions are usually followed by the big one: Why is my bill so damn high?

It’s pretty easy to find a corporate executive out there telling you that electric bills are rising because we’re moving to clean energy too quickly. They’re not telling the truth.

Average electric rates have gone up over 30% in the last three years, primarily from the cost of the supply of electricity. April’s average monthly electric bill was $205. That’s only the electricity and does not even include the gas portion of your bill.

Maryland gets its electricity through a regional transmission provider called PJM (for the original three states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland), which now services 13 states and Washington, D.C. This multistate regional transmission operator sets the rules for the wholesale power market. PJM coordinates the delivery of energy from generating plants to those states that need it. Most of the states in the PJM grid are net importers of electricity. This means those states, including Maryland, don’t produce enough in-state energy to fulfill their state’s needs.

Unfortunately, supply is not keeping up with demand. And any time there is a shortage — of anything — we see prices jump. That’s the case here, too. The people producing the energy are taking advantage of the “free market” and jacking up the price. And it’s falling on you, the ratepayers.

Can Maryland do anything about it? Absolutely. If the energy supply is increased, prices should drop — as should your bills. Clean energy is a better investment than volatile fossil fuels. As fossil fuel prices rise, clean energy will become cheaper over the long run.

Are there more energy producers out there that we could utilize? You bet. Unfortunately, the “queue” (or line to “get in” and be approved) to come online for PJM has been closed for years. As of May 2023, there were 202 gigawatts of power in the queue, more than enough to satisfy increased demand — and drive down prices.

It should come as no surprise that the current suppliers overwhelmingly are greenhouse gas-producing plants and a few nuclear reactors. Nearly three-quarters of the potential new energy in the queue to provide power are solar and other clean energy projects, which the Maryland Energy Administration strongly promotes. Yet PJM asserts that it is “technology neutral.”

If you’re waiting for the good news, keep waiting. PJM has now made a bad situation worse by changing the rules governing the energy capacity market. These changes have delivered significant windfalls for electricity generators. Unfortunately, because of a recent, highly flawed PJM capacity market auction, your rates will go up even further through September. Why? Because now ratepayers are paying for two fossil fuel plants to stay open, but market rules treat them as closed. This created an artificial shortage of electricity, driving up the auction prices.

As a result, it’s projected that rates will go up $20 or more per month. You would have seen this increase early this summer, but Maryland’s Public Service Commission intervened to reduce the pain and spread your increased bill over a longer period. The bottom line? PJM’s independent watchdog declared that the last capacity market auction was “evaluated as not competitive.” Earlier this year, when PJM was challenged by states like ours, it quickly changed course. That showed that they recognized that rates were too high.

Maryland soon will be advancing a reform package to PJM and sharing it with the other states on our grid. Unfortunately, the management structure of PJM grants very little formal power to the states it serves.

How crazy is that? So, the reform package will aim to increase the role of the states in PJM decision-making.

In any case, it will take big, difficult, systemic changes, and you can be sure there will be pushback from the energy companies and likely, the utilities. And obviously, when running in a free market energy production arena, there’s little control of the profit margin sought by the suppliers.

While Maryland will seek these big reforms, there are some things you can do to control your energy usage and lower your bill. These include utilizing EmPOWER, the program run by the utilities — with your money — that provides incentives such as free or reduced cost energy audits, weatherization and efficient appliances, all meant to lower your energy bill. Virtually all of Maryland’s large utilities participate in EmPOWER. Signing up for Community Solar from a local solar farm often guarantees you a lower rate than your utility. And you can install a programmable thermostat and ensure your windows are doing their job.

The current situation is clearly tough on the checkbook. And while the needed reforms are outside of direct state control, our state will continue working to push the envelope and get the needed reforms surfaced and acted upon.

Paul G. Pinsky is the director of the Maryland Energy Administration, to which he was appointed by Gov. Wes Moore. Pinsky was previously elected seven times to the Maryland State Senate, where he served as the lead sponsor of the landmark Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022.