Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan on Wednesday called for immediate relief from pending electric rate hikes even as he worked on a long-range solution for one Silver Spring apartment complex.
“The legislature needs to come back into a special session,” he said. “We have to look at how do you restructure electricity. How do you re-regulate? Because deregulation has failed the consumers.”
Then, red-faced on a Code Orange ozone day, Duncan helped plant a zelkova shade tree outside Hampton Point Apartments.
So far, 80 trees have been planted around the county as part of the Department of Environmental Protection’s Shade to Save program. As the newest of these trees grow and fill out, they will shade six air-conditioning heat-exchange units outside a Hampton Point building.
Shading your heat exchanger makes a 20 degree difference in its surface temperature, said Eric Coffman, a county energy planner. That amounts to as much as a 5 percent reduction in electric bills for cooling. Trees also block wind in the winter, reducing heating costs.
Meanwhile, Duncan and his Democratic rival for the governor’s office, Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley, are jockeying for the title of defender of the ratepayer. While O’Malley’s city attorney leads a court challenge to the rate increases approved by Maryland’s Public Service Commission, Duncan is going after the legislature.
“The Public Service Commission is not going to change their decision,” Duncan said.
However, a Baltimore judge on Tuesday rejected the 72 percent rate hike for residential customers of Baltimore Gas and Electric and ordered the Public Service Commission to hold a new hearing to determine whether the increase is justified.
Duncan said he expects to go through the same “broken” process next year to approve electric rates.
