Posted on 08/11/25
| News Source: FOX45
Baltimore, MD - Aug. 11, 2025 - Maryland’s power grid faced another stress test Monday as thousands of residents were hit with outages — a sign that the state’s electricity supply remains vulnerable as summer demand increases.
Some 4,000 Marylanders lost power, according to BGE’s outage map, during the peak of Monday’s blackouts after the Baltimore-area utility issued a warning about an “unplanned disconnection” at a key regional power plant — a disruption severe enough to trigger an emergency energy conservation request to all customers.
The incident comes just days after federal regulators granted the area’s largest plant, the H.A. Wagner facility in Brandon Shores, a rare emergency waiver to exceed pollution limits to keep enough electricity flowing to the grid for central Maryland.
In addition to conserving electricity beginning immediately and through this evening, we also recommend customers prepare for a potential outage,” BGE said in an alert posted Monday afternoon. “If an outage is necessary, we will make every effort to alert customers in advance.”
PJM Interconnection, the Mid-Atlantic grid operator, initially confirmed the plant disconnection but directed questions to BGE. The grid operator later spoke with a reporter by email with FOX45 News explaining the incident.
"Due to this event, transmission to bring power into parts of central Maryland was limited for most of the Day Monday," said Jeffrey Shields, PJM's spokesperson. "While BGE worked to address the transmission outage, electricity demand briefly exceeded the current capacity of the local transmission system as demand peaked in the afternoon."
"Soon after the Load Shed Directive was implemented, BGE reported that portions of the transmission system that were inoperable for most of the day had been restored. While all of the equipment is not yet in service, PJM was able to cancel its load shed directive at 4:20 p.m. as we are able to bring enough power into the Baltimore area with the restorations."
Meanwhile, BGE told Spotlight on Maryland on Monday evening that the outage was part of a "transmission equipment issue" that impacted BGE's electric system.
BGE continues to coordinate with the plant's owner to make repairs as quickly and safely as possible," said Nicholas Alexopulos, BGE's spokesperson. "We are still investigating and have not identified the exact cause."
Alexopulos added that the region's power outages and an electricity conservation emergency were the result of a "transmission constraint issue."
The Department of Energy’s 90-day waiver, issued by Energy Secretary Chris Wright last week, warned that without more operating hours at Wagner, the region could face “firm load shed” — controlled rolling blackouts — if another severe heatwave strikes.
“PJM assesses that if another heatwave similar to that which occurred in late June 2025 were to occur, there are insufficient run hours remaining,” Wright wrote.
Maryland Del. Ryan Nawrocki, R-Baltimore County, said BGE’s warning about rolling blackouts on Monday underscores larger grid supply problems.
This is exactly what will happen when you cut the supply of power on the grid, and that’s exactly what we are doing in Maryland,” Nawrocki said.
Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore City, seemed to disagree with that view during a news conference Monday afternoon. “Hopefully, BGE will be fixing this infrastructure issue,” Ferguson said, adding that the problem was unrelated to generation capacity.
A source familiar with Monday’s emergency, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said an internal investigation into the plant disconnection was underway. Energy leaders have repeatedly told Spotlight on Maryland that such events, known as “trips,” can be caused by transformer overloads, weather damage, human error, or generation units falling out of sync with the grid — but are especially disruptive when grid capacity is already tight.
“Unfortunately, it may take outages and real pain, economic and personal, for people to kind of wake up to how bad these policies are because they have been told for so many years through the education system and the media that we have to do something about carbon emissions and fossil fuels because it is going to kill our planet,” Tice said.
Tice said energy policy has become a more heated debate topic in the New Jersey governor’s race this fall. The senior fellow blamed the current N.J. Gov. Phil Murphy for pushing offshore wind, a similar priority of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, which is yet to begin construction in either state.
“Most of the utility customers here [in N.J.] in the last three months have seen their bills go up by 17 to 20%,” Tice said. “It’s kind of a jarring shock that something is wrong.”
Moore’s spokesman said in a statement to Spotlight on Maryland that the administration was in “constant communication” with BGE on Monday about the rolling outage that impacted residents in concentrated areas across central Maryland.
“BGE reports that the portions of the transmission system that were inoperable this morning have now been restored; they continue to assess and repair the system as needed,” spokesman Carter Elliott said in an emailed statement late Monday afternoon.
“We continue to coordinate with our partners across the public and private sectors, in addition to local leadership, to ensure appropriate preparedness and support,” Elliott said. “As BGE and PJM continue after-action efforts to ensure that restored power is sustained, Marylanders are encouraged to continue to conserve energy.”
BGE said they do not anticipate additional outages related to the event to "occur today/through this evening."
If an outage must occur, we will make every effort to alert customers in advance," Alexopulos said.
Shields told Spotlight on Maryland on Monday evening that PJM directed BGE to "lower flows across overloaded lines by reducing electricity load."
"Continued reliable operation of the local transmission system will depend upon the operability of the transmission facilities that tripped this morning," Shields said. "But for now, the system is in a place such that we can serve our peak evening demand in the area."
In case of a potential power outage, electricity customers are advised to charge phones and electric vehicles, stock up on water, and have flashlights with fresh batteries. Those depending on medication that needs refrigeration or on medical devices that require electricity should also have an action plan in case of an outage.