February 2021
Member Spotlight
In 2021, SECC will be recognizing a member each month, providing an organizational profile and highlighting the member's accomplishments and output in the smart energy space.
About Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE)
BGE is Maryland’s largest natural gas and electric utility, and its approximately 3,200 employees are committed to providing safe and reliable energy to more than 1.3 million electric customers and more than 680,000 natural gas customers in central Maryland. The company was founded in 1816 as the nation's first gas utility and remains headquartered in Baltimore City to this day. BGE is a subsidiary of Exelon Corporation, the nation's leading competitive energy provider.
BGE focuses on providing a world-class customer experience and is constantly striving to find new and better ways to improve service offerings and customer engagement.
EVsmart℠ Program
Electric vehicle (EV) charging is one example merging the company’s electric and infrastructure expertise with shifting customer expectations. The state of Maryland set a goal of having 300,000 zero-emissions vehicles on the road by 2025 to help reach its clean air and Healthy Chesapeake Bay goals. In support, BGE launched the EVsmart program, which is now transforming transportation in Maryland. In just over one year, more than 600 residential customers have claimed EV charger rebates, and over 100 BGE-owned public chargers have been installed throughout central Maryland.
Through EVsmart, BGE is the first utility in the nation that can offer customers a Vehicle Charging Time-of-Use Rate without having to add an additional electric meter to the customer’s property. This decreases the complexity of the charger installation and ultimately drives down owner costs while increasing satisfaction. EV drivers can take advantage of this time-of-use rate for their EV charging while the rest of their home remains on a standard electric rate, which offers the maximum flexibility for their electric needs.
BGE Marketplace
Customers can save energy and money by shopping for energy-related products on BGEMarketplace.com. This retail site offers products like LED lightbulbs, smart thermostats, advanced power strips and more to help drive energy savings. These energy savings support EmPOWER Maryland, the state’s program that helps customers reduce energy consumption and their electric bills.
BGE Marketplace provides customers with more insight and control over their home energy use and serves as a convenient one-stop shop for customer energy needs. BGE Marketplace also offers instant, point-of-purchase rebates on competitively-priced energy management products, integrated customer support and end-to-end fulfillment.
My Account Online Tools
BGE developed My Account, a suite of online tools and easily accessible energy usage information, to help customers manage their energy use more efficiently. Through My Account, customers can analyze their energy usage by accessing hour-by-hour and day-by-day energy usage information, compare their home’s energy usage to other similarly-sized homes in their area, receive personalized tips after answering a few simple questions about their home to learn what uses the most energy, and sign up to receive a High Usage Alert when their electricity usage is trending higher than usual. All of this information is shared so customers can be informed and take action to lower their usage and ultimately save money.
BGE Mobile App
Knowing that customers prioritize convenient access to the services and companies they do business with, BGE developed a free mobile app that provides easy access to account information on-the-go. The app makes it simple to manage more than one account at a time and is available to both residential and business customers. Through the app, customers can pay their bill with just the swipe of a finger, report outages, stay up to date on their outage restoration status, check their energy usage and access many self-service options, including signing up for budget billing.
Community Leader
BGE is a leader in addressing community needs, focusing on expanding job opportunities to historically underrepresented communities, increasing spending with diverse-certified suppliers and creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace for all employees. In addition, the company’s recently approved Customer Relief and Energy Infrastructure Investment Plan is designed to aid in the region’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic while continuing to improve the energy delivery systems in central Maryland. The plan details how BGE will make significant investments in the electric grid and natural gas system over the next several years while also freezing rates for its customers in 2021 and supporting more than 26,000 jobs during the life of the plan.
