November 5th, 2025
by Christine Condon, Maryland Matters
November 5, 2025
Constellation Energy began making its case Tuesday that it should be the go-to company if Maryland expands power generation within its borders.
The company said Tuesday that it had submitted proposals, under the state’s new permitting fast-track process, for two natural gas power plant concepts and for new battery energy storage facility. In a news release, the company also floated the idea of improvements or expansion at its Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, but acknowledged those projects are longer-term and would require an infusion of private or public dollars to move forward.
The fast-track project approval was one of a number of plans approved this year by lawmakers anxious to find ways to curb voters’ soaring utility bills, by increasing the supply of power and bringing down costs.
Only two other companies submitted applications by the Oct. 31 deadline for “fast-track” project approval by the Maryland Public Service Commission: One proposal, from Alpha Generation, would increase the capacity and efficiency of the gas-fired Keys Energy Center in Prince George’s County’s Brandywine, while the other, from Total Civil Construction & Engineering, is confidential.
The turmoil over high energy bills has drawn one other potential player. The Exelon Corp., owner of three Maryland utilities that is currently prohibited from generating power, has started to make the case to lawmakers that it should be allowed to build power plants in Maryland — and use ratepayer dollars to do so.
Utilities like Exelon can currently own power transmission infrastructure, but not generation. They enjoy a monopoly in their service territories, but are regulated by the state’s Public Service Commission.
Exelon has not yet filed project plans with the PSC, but is studying possible projects and making the case for being allowed to do so. But in a statement Tuesday, Constellation President and CEO Joe Dominguez drew a sharp distinction between his company’s proposal and Exelon’s plans.
“Importantly, all our investments have been and will be done without any cost to Maryland families and businesses. We are not now and never will be a monopoly that seeks guaranteed profits,” Dominguez said. “We are a company that competes for its opportunities just like all our hardworking customers do — every single day.”
It’s not clear precisely where Constellation plans to put a new gas-powered plant or the battery storage facility in proposal. Locations were redacted from the company’s filing with the PSC. But both proposals make reference to the Baltimore Gas & Electric territory.
Any of the projects would be placed on Constellation property already developed for power facilities, said Mason Emnett, the company’s senior vice president for public policy. That avoids the need for land acquisition, Emnett said, and by “using land that is otherwise dedicated to power generation right now … we’re not disturbing greenfield space, or something like that.”
Besides Calvert Cliffs, Constellation\ power facilities in Maryland are the Conowingo Dam, the Perryman natural gas plant in Aberdeen, the Philadelphia Road oil plant in Baltimore and three wind farms in Western Maryland.
Constellation said in it application that it would submit both gas-plant projects to the regional electric grid, operated by PJM Interconnection, by the end of April 2026.
Constellation’s battery project would be spread out between four parcels of land, and could contribute up to 800 megawatts back to the grid at its maximum output.
The battery storage project fell short on one criterion for “fast-track” eligibility: Its effective load carrying capacity, which measures its ability to contribute to the grid at peak times, is 58%, below the fast-track program’s requirement of 65%. Constellation wrote that it was “nevertheless” proposing the project, in part because of its “magnitude,” and its zero-emissions profile.
Exelon wants to build a power plant in Maryland, reversing decades of deregulation policy
“This project fits squarely within Maryland’s policy priorities of encouraging additional generation while managing emissions,” the filing reads.
Gas proposals generate pushback; logistical hurdles remain
But fast-tracking natural gas powered plants remains a concern for environmental groups, who argue that their emissions pose health concerns and imperil the state’s ambitious goals to reduce fossil fuel emissions and rely on clean energy.
The fast-track proposal from Alpha Generation, for improvements to the Keys Energy Center in Brandywine, has been targeted by community members who have long raised environmental justice concerns over the number of polluting industrial facilities concentrated in the majority-Black area.
The Brandywine/TB Southern Region Neighborhood Coalition earned an “Informal Resolution Agreement” with federal and state agencies in 2019, after it submitted a Title VI complaint arguing that a new power plant proposed for the community was discriminatory. In a statement Tuesday, BTB Coalition President Kamita Gray called on the PSC to pause the project at Keys.
“Maryland can’t claim to be a leader on environmental justice while fast-tracking pollution in Black communities that already did their share,” Gray said.
Constellation has offered two options for a new gas-powered plant — a larger facility with a maximum output of 564 megawatts, and a smaller one with a maximum output of 150 megawatts. The company says either could be operational by June 2029.
But there is a question about whether existing gas pipelines can bring enough fuel to the sites Constellation is considering for the two plants. It has inquired with Exelon’s Baltimore Gas & Electric about gas service to the area, its application says.
“If the site requires a significant expansion of the gas delivery system, that’s a whole ‘nother permitting and infrastructure deployment enabler that we don’t control,” Emnett said.
But he said Constellation is otherwise well-positioned to add natural gas generation capacity, because it already owns six critical gas turbines that it could move into Maryland.
“The generally held belief is: It’ll take you about five years to get through the ordering process and have a new turbine delivered,” Emnett said. “We already have the turbines. We are able to move as quickly as the permitting and selection and surrounding construction process allows.”
Logistics aside, climate groups say natural gas is the wrong way to go if the state hopes to meet its clean-energy goals.
Under state law, Maryland must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 60% from 2006 levels by 2031, and reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2045. Gov. Wes Moore (D) issued an executive order requiring his administration to plan to reach 100% clean energy by 2035.
In a filing with the PSC, more than a dozen climate groups, including the Action Network, the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club, wrote that they “strenuously disagree with the assumption that constructing more gas-fired generation” could achieve Maryland’s goals for increased energy affordability and reliability.
They wrote that state law requires that the PSC take Maryland’s climate mandates into consideration during its decision-making. The law creating the fast-track program also requires the PSC to approve four projects that don’t generate emissions for every one project that does, the advocates noted.
In his statement Tuesday, Dominguez acknowledged the climate concerns with natural gas proposals.
“We believe that natural gas generation should be an option, but there are pros and cons to consider and, quite naturally, we do not want to build what our state does not want,” Dominguez wrote. “Therefore, our plan presents natural gas generation as one of a number of options, with an explanation of the utility work that will be needed to secure this option.”
But Brittany Baker, Maryland director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said state regulators and lawmakers don’t need to reject new gas purely for the climate outcomes — she argues that new gas would be costly, as well.
“As soon as we run the numbers, it will be clear that all of the additional infrastructure that’s required to build any new gas is not going to make any sense for utility bills,” Baker said. “It’s going to raise bills — not lower them.”
If policymakers “jump through all the hoops,” and decide to build new gas anyway, “they’re going to have to deal with us,” she said.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
Baker said she’s optimistic that the state won’t pursue a new gas plant, but if it happens, her organization is planning on “bringing in a microphone” to the affected community, to help residents share concerns about emissions.
“We’re not going to allow new gas in the state,” Baker said. “We’re going to fight it with everything we have.”
Nuclear expansion is distant, but could be fueled by data centers
Largely undiscussed is the third Constellation proposal, nuclear power, largely because of the prohibitive costs.
Emnett said adding a third nuclear reactor to Calvert Cliffs would probably cost around $10 billion. A small modular reactor might shave several billion from the price, he said, while making technological upgrades, which could boost output by 10%, would probably cost around $1 billion.
The hefty price tags have Constellation turning to the well-heeled companies that operate data centers, which come with immense power needs. Emnett said Constellation is in talks with large-load customers who could sponsor upgrades at Calvert Cliffs or other sites, in exchange for pulling power from those sites.
He said such an agreement could provide Constellation with the confidence to apply for a new 20-year license for Calvert Cliffs, where licenses on the two reactors expire in 2034 and 2036.
But securing an agreement is easier said than done.
“We talk to customers about risk-sharing arrangements, but from the customer’s perspective, it’s difficult to bear a lot of that development risk when that’s not their expertise,” Emnett said. “They’re not power developers.”
State officials could take steps to back nuclear, and encourage Constellation to keep operating the facility – or grow its footprint, Emnett said.
This year’s Next Generation Energy Act created a nuclear procurement program within the PSC that would use ratepayer funds, with regulations due by 2027. The law also directed state government to explore cost-sharing agreements with other states that could mitigate the risk of nuclear development.
Emnett said Constellation backed an unsuccessful proposal in the 2025 General Assembly that would have employed state funds to act as a backstop for a federal nuclear tax credit that could sunset in 2032.
But Constellation is aiming to lean on investor funds, he said.
“That’s the pathway that we spent most of our time focusing on, because we think it’s more productive to use private dollars instead of public dollars to the extent possible,” Emnett said.
Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.
