Reliable Pepco
Mark Pierzchala, Rockville, MD Councilmember, November 30, 2012

Plans to Fix Pepco and the MD Public Service Commission

This website was originally meant to hold a plan formulated by Mark Pierzchala, Rockville Councilmember. It was first published on October 1, 2012. On October 3, 2012, the State of Maryland came up with a report and a reported plan to improve the resiliancy of the grid. This second offering is now also included in this website without comment. In the spirit of inclusiveness, this website will accept any credible plan to fix Pepco if the plan (1) is a PDF file or can be reached by a link, (2) the plan's authorship is clear, and (3) the plan does not trash anyone or is otherwise disreputable (e.g., use of profanity). I'll be the judge of all criteria.

Pepco Files Rate Case (Posted November 30, 2012)
Pepco released these three documents in announcing a rate case filing today. These were sent to government officials in Montgomery County shortly before a 2:30pm call-in session with the utility. Pepco officials spoke about the need for the rates and took questions and answers from government officials calling in to listen.

FACT_SHEET_Pepco_Maryland_Rate_Filing_11_30_12.pdf
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Pepco_News_Release_Maryland_Rates_11_30_12.pdf
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Pepco_Q_A_Maryland_Rates_11_30_12.pdf
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Pepco Does Better (Posted October 31, 2012)
Pepco performed well during Hurricane Sandy October 29 and 30, 2012. The link is from the Washington Post, the story's title is "Inside Pepco: How the utility kept the lights on during Hurricane Sandy".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pepco-praised-for-how-it-weathers-hurricane-sandy/2012/10/30/ff867a08-229b-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html

There are now 6 plans listed! See the text below.

These are listed in the order they were made known.
1. The Pierzchala Plan
2. The Montgomery County Pepco Working Group Plan
3. The State of Maryland Plan and Report
4. The Douglass Plan
5. The Public Utility Plan (Hensal)
6. Utility 2.0 Championed by Montgomery County Counil President Roger Berliner (Posted October 31, 2012)

You can navigate to the Pepco Plan Forum tab to make comments about any of these plans.

The Pierzchala Plan

This plan to fix Pepco is submitted by Mark Pierzchala, Rockville, MD councilmember. It is a draft and I invite your comments. You can download the 4-page PDF document from the following link.

Pepco_Plan_Mark_Pierzchala_Ver1a.pdf
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Since fixing Pepco is a policy issue and this plan is submitted for comment as part of my councilmember position, all comments submitted are public record. For that reason, I approach this effort as a publicly available forum where everyone can see all the comments. This open forum seeks the combined wisdom of many Pepco consumers and provides a relatively quick way to improve it.

I seek comments that will improve the plan. An assumption behind this plan is that people, not technical issues, are responsible for the frequent and lengthy Pepco electricity outages. These may be the investors and managers of Pepco, a Public Service Commission that is too small and stressed to do its job well, or the state-level elected officials who have the power but maybe not the motivation to fix the situation. The plan seeks to restructure the PSC, align (some of) Pepco's interests with those of its consumers, and to shed light on utility donations to elected officials.

This forum site is not looking for horror stories or testimonials. It is looking for improvements to the plan. All comments are automatically published. No comments are judged for display. Profanity is filtered out and shouldn't be part of your submission anyway. Please do not trash anyone or engage in disrespectful commentary.

To comment on the plan, click on the Pepco Plan Forum tab, then click on the Discussion tab. There are 4 discussion topics. First is on the assumptions of the plan. Then there are discussion discussion topics for each part of the plan. Click on the topic discussion to make a comment. There will be a link to log on. You have to create a username and password in order to comment. It will ask for your email account.

I will not read or answer emails stemming from this forum. I will review this forum for comments (like anyone can) to improve the plan and we will all work on the same information.

A great technical resource is a 2011 Montgomery County Maryland Pepco Work Group report. It is found by following this link:
http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/pdf/OFFICIAL_FINAL_WORK_GROUP_REPORT_4-21-11.pdf

A grass-roots effort in Montgomery County is headed by Abbe Milstein. She can be reached at powerupmontco@gmail.com. Susan Hoffmann, former Mayor of Rockville, has also worked tirelessly at efforts to make Pepco a more responsive and reliable company. I thank both Abbe and Susan for their support.

Please honor this forum as a good-faith effort to improve Pepco's reliability and comment accordingly. I want your wisdom, not your ire. That is how we work together to improve Pepco reliability.

The Montgomery County Pepco Working Group Plan

This plan is made up of recommendations extracted from the 2011 Montgomery County Maryland Pepco Work Group report. These are found in Appendix I of the report. These recommendations are the set of recommendations made to MD governments and the MD Public Service Commission (PSC). The full report can be found in the link several lines above.

MoCoPepcoPlan.pdf
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The State of Maryland Plan and Report (added October 3, 2012)

Below there is a link to the Washington Post article of October 3, 2012, and a link to the report. I don't see a plan per se, just a mention in the article that outlines O'Malley's intentions.

Washington Post Article: O’Malley to seek surcharge to harden Md. electric grid

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/omalley-to-seek-surcharge-to-harden-md-electric-grid/2012/10/02/d75961f6-0ccc-11e2-a310-2363842b7057_story.html?hpid=z4

Maryland Report: Weathering the Storm: Report of the Grid Resiliency Task Force
http://www.governor.maryland.gov/documents/GridResiliencyTaskForceReport.pdf

The Douglass Plan

This plan is from testimony given to the Public Service Commission by John Douglass, a former member of the MD House of Delegates in support of HB 1110. It is here as a PDF file.

Md_Public_Service_Commission_Bill.pdf
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The Public Utility Plan by Eric J Hensal

This plan is from Eric J Hensal who puts forward a series of steps to explore and to implement a public utility in Montgomery County.

Pepco_Public_Utility_Plan.pdf
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See also the Public Power Utility website at http://www.MoCoPublicPower.org/

Utility 2.0 Champiioned by Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner

This is a summary of the Utility 2.0 plan written by Mark Pierzchala who attended a meeting of the County Council's Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee on October 25. This is a plan for a pilot program in Montgomery County that would feature robust applications of more modern technology.

Uility2Point0.pdf
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Please also see the following link http://www.galvinpower.org/resources/electric-revolution/full-text. This leads to a publication called An Electric Revolution from the Galvin Electricity Initiative. It explains this new technology and grid design concepts in understandable terms, including much of what the Utility 2.0 pilot would be all about. This booklet was mentioned at the October 25 meeting.

This link leads to a Gazette article on Utility 2.0 (posted November 1, 2012).
http://www.gazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121026/NEWS/710269526/1070/montgomery-county-mulls-the-next-generation-of-electric-service&&template=PrinterFriendlygaz

Mark Pierzchala
Rockville, MD Councilmember

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