If you live in Easton, you are probably a Delmarva Power customer. If you live outside it — Bozman, Wittman, Cordova, much of the county's farm ground — you are probably a Choptank Electric member. That distinction is now worth about $300 on paper.

Maryland People's Counsel David Lapp filed a complaint at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in May, arguing that PJM's rules unfairly assign the cost of data-center-driven transmission to states that are not hosting the data centers. The complaint asks FERC to shift those costs to the zones where the load actually sits, or to the data centers themselves. FERC has not ruled.

The numbers, as reported from that filing: Roughly $2 billion in transmission capital has already been allocated to Maryland customers, with about $1.6 billion in bills projected over the next decade. Broken out by utility, the average Delmarva Power residential customer is estimated at about $205 over ten years — around $20 a year. The average Choptank Electric residential member is estimated at about $508, or roughly $50 a year.

Choptank members carry the highest per-customer burden cited anywhere in the coverage of the filing. Rural Talbot would pay the most, for infrastructure serving load in Northern Virginia, Ohio and Illinois.

Why this fall matters: In June, FERC ordered PJM and five other grid operators to defend or revise how they allocate large-load costs — an order that strengthens the Maryland complaint's premise. PJM's capacity auction for 2028–29 cleared at the price cap again in July, and FERC's chair convened a reform conference the same month.

Separately, the People's Counsel asked FERC in March to reject cost recovery on $1.1 billion in transmission projects.

None of this has been decided. What has been decided is who is currently on the hook — and the answer, for now, is a co-op member outside Easton paying roughly two and a half times what a town customer pays for the same regional buildout.