Logo compliments of Public Citizen's Energy ProgramThe two counties comprising Pepco's residential customer base in Maryland -- Montgomery and Prince George's -- have just agreed to the merger of the electric utilities Exelon and Pepco, according to an Exelon press release.
UtilityDIVE has reported on this story.
Exelon is the largest nuclear utility in the U.S., with around two dozen dirty, dangerous, and expensive aging reactors in its nationwide fleet.
Despite the positive spin of Exelon's high-priced PR campaign, the simple truth is that the counties, and other organizations expressing support for the merger, have sold out cheap. Exelon's commitments to low income and other ratepayers in the Pepco service area are quite minimal. Exelon's commitments to energy efficiency upgrades and renewable energy expansion are likewise small-scale, compared to what is possible and needed.
To the contrary, Exelon has declared "nuclear war" against renewables and efficiency, as unwanted competition to its nuclear and fracked natural gas generators.
And perhaps most significantly of all for hard-working Maryland ratepayers: Exelon's thinly veiled motivation for merging with Pepco in the first place is to secure a solid rate base of customers, which it can milk to help prop up uncompetitive, and ever more dirty (as due to tritium leaks), dangerous (as due to meltdown risks), and age-degraded atomic reactors in Illinois -- where Exelon is simultaneously seeking massive ratepayer bailouts.