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Parties filed comments on petition of Joint Solar Participants (JSPs) for reconsideration and clarification of Maryland PSC’s June 29, 2026 second order on DRIVE Act program proposals.

Staff – recommended denying the petition, arguing that: (i) “NEM participation alone does not resolve whether DRIVE Act compensation represents double counting,” saying that “The relevant technical inquiry is whether dispatch of the participating DER during a DRIVE Act event causes a measurable change in the customer’s net load or export relative to what reasonably would have occurred absent the dispatch event”; (ii) JSPs’ “energy-versus-capacity distinction does not, by itself, resolve the question,” as a “DER’s operation during a DRIVE Act event may simultaneously affect exported energy… and peak-load reduction or dispatch performance”; (iii) JSPs’ lack data to support “a quantitative relationship between a 50-percent reduction in annual $/kW compensation and the amount of potentially overlapping NEM exports occurring during DRIVE Act events”; (iv) EDSSS compensation “should, where practicable, reflect the nature and value of the distribution system service being procured,” and that value resulting from “services intended to address identified distribution system constraints or defer traditional infrastructure investments… should be distinguished from the subsequent determination of whether a participating customer’s receipt of compensation through another mechanism, including NEM, compensates any portion of the same value”; (v) the pilot programs should be used “to develop an empirical record regarding the extent to which NEM-participating DERs provide incremental distribution system support during called events and the extent, if any, to which the compensation mechanisms overlap.

MEA – (i) supports JSPs’ recommendation to “clarify that NEM participation, standing alone, does not necessarily establish that compensation for a DER’s participation in an [Electric Distribution System Support Services (EDSSS)] program would constitute double counting”; and (ii) recommends MDPSC “use the pilot programs to develop additional information regarding customer participation, compensation, DER performance, and the distribution system benefits provided by participating resources.”

OPC  – recommended Maryland PSC deny the petition, arguing that: (i) “Regardless of whether there is double counting for net energy metering (‘NEM’) customers who participate in DRIVE Act demand response programs, the Maryland General Assembly made clear its intent ‘to provide additional incentives and protections to low- and moderate-income [(‘LMI’)] households to ensure access to the benefits of electrification’”; (ii) JSPs “provide no evidence that NEM customers are largely composed of LMI customers,” but there is “evidence that many net-metered customers that would also be eligible to participate in DRIVE Act demand response programs… are above average income”; (iii) the directive that utilities “compensate NEM customers participating in the DRIVE pilots with lower performance credits… maintains fairness to non-NEM customers while still providing NEM customers with an incentive to participate”; and (iv) “the DRIVE pilot performance compensation rate is a subjective policy determination that should reflect pilot priorities, and maintaining the directive would “limit the continued cost shift of NEM participation on non-NEM customers and avoid compounding that cost shift through additional subsidies to the same customer segment”;”

As background, Maryland PSC initiated this proceeding in response to the 2024 Distributed Renewable Integration and Vehicle Electrification (DRIVE) Act, intended to promote demand response, including various distributed energy resources (DERs), and other demand-side measures to improve grid function and lower customer bills. The act required investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to implement time-of-use rate (TOU), vehicle-to-grid (V2G), and virtual power plant (VPP) pilots programs in 2025.