Way Downstream …(Jan. 24-30, 2019)
That sense you get pumping gas — that it could be time for an electric vehicle — is shared by many of us, and we soon could see fewer worries about powering up. But things aren’t moving as swiftly as some folks would hope.
The Public Service Commission last week authorized utilities to install 5,000 electric vehicle charging stations around Maryland, about four times as many as exist now, mainly in the Baltimore and Washington suburbs.
Yet that is far fewer than the 24,000 proposed a year ago, a bold venture into freedom from petroleum that would have given Maryland the second largest charging program in the nation behind only California.
Power providers, BGE among them, got the go-ahead to proceed with a modified, five-year program that will pass on to “ratepayers” the cost of installing the charging stations.
Under the original plan of 24,000 stations, we’d all be paying somewhere between 25 and 42 cents a month.
Whoa! was the sound from the PSC, okaying fewer charging stations “at a reduced cost to lessen exposure by Maryland ratepayers.”
OK, but can’t they just call us people?