There is no factual dispute that Maryland consumes about 40% more electricity than it generates. That shortfall is not shrinking; it is growing, and the cost of that power keeps rising. We have previously written that Maryland Needs to Produce More Electricity. That imperative is even more urgent as demand spikes from artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and electrification of buildings.
One elegant solution has just emerged from New England. New Hampshire recently approved HB 672, a remarkably concise one page statute signed by Governor Kelly Ayotte last month. The law cuts through red tape for electricity providers that don’t connect to the existing grid, bringing competition, speed, and innovation into a sector long bogged down by bureaucracy.
Off grid electricity providers in New Hampshire are no longer subject to public utility regulation. This liberates entrepreneurs to develop projects and serve customers directly, without asking permission from state regulators. As Representative Michael Vose, the bill’s sponsor, explained: “New Hampshire welcomes entrepreneurship and innovation in energy.” The data backs this up; studies suggest regulatory hurdles add anywhere from one to five years to projects with multidigit cost multipliers.
The Case for Off Grid Providers
Not just Maryland but the larger U.S. is short on electrons. Welcoming new suppliers means welcoming new ideas for tackling electricity challenges. Imagine a private provider generating power on site from gas turbines, solar arrays, green hydrogen or even a small modular nuclear reactor, and delivering it directly to commercial or industrial customers. Picture data centers, advanced manufacturing facilities or campuses with their own dedicated localized smaller scale electrical system that can power a specific area, unencumbered by decades of entrenched public utility regulation.
Having users respond to their peak load demand helps reduce electricity costs for everyone and those power costs have been increasing dramatically in Maryland and are projected to continue to become larger.
This is what a true free market in electricity could begin to look like.
For over a century, electricity law has been built around the notion of the “natural monopoly.” Dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, policymakers chose to grant utilities monopoly privilege and then regulate them tightly through oversight bodies like the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, established in 1924 and the oldest of its kind in the U.S. That framework may have been sensible in the age of centralized generation and limited technology. But in 2025, with distributed generation, micro grids, and advanced storage technologies, the natural monopoly assumption is, at minimum, untested.
Regulatory reform since the 1990s has been “re-regulation” more than deregulation. True market competition in electricity has never been tried. Allowing private utilities to develop and compete off grid from generation to supply and even battery storage, is a pragmatic way to break through that barrier without threatening the reliability of the legacy grid.
Why Maryland Should Act
Maryland does not have a viable plan to produce more electrons. Neither the pipe dream of recent legislation expediting the state existing procurement process for renewable energy projects nor the fanciful plan for offshore wind turbines which are at best unlikely to produce electricity in the next decade or at worst simply illusory.
Maryland policymakers should look closely at the New Hampshire model. A modest statutory change, declaring that unconnected private utilities fall outside the jurisdiction of the state’s public utility law, would unleash innovation.
Consider the advantages:
- Economic Development Without Subsidies: Instead of tax credits or subsidies, often taken from ratepayers, the state simply allows entrepreneurs to build. If projects succeed, Maryland benefits from new investment and jobs. If they fail, there’s no risk to taxpayers or ratepayers.
- Speed to Market: Today, interconnection delays are often measured in years. For fast moving industries, that delay is intolerable. Off grid suppliers can deliver power far more quickly.
- Customer Choice & Reliability: Some customers are willing to pay more for dedicated, reliable, or cleaner energy (e.g., hospitals, defense contractors, etc.). Off grid models let them do so.
- Environmental Transparency: Grid power is a resource mix, often making environmental attributes hard to pin down. An off grid provider can offer customers clearer guarantees of 100% renewable, low carbon natural gas, or a blended portfolio.
- Resilience: Smaller, localized grids and large battery backups may be less vulnerable to cascading outages and peak load shedding, providing redundancy in a time when extreme weather threatens system reliability.
Legal & Policy Perspective
From an environmental attorney’s vantage point, the regulatory question is straightforward: should Maryland continue to rely exclusively on monopoly regulation written in the 1920s, or should it experiment with a new class of providers that the law never contemplated?
The New Hampshire approach is elegant because it does not dismantle the existing regulated grid, it simply allows an alternative to exist. Importantly, the off grid carveout avoids FERC’s complex jurisdictional entanglements and the state’s byzantine approval process, since the new providers are not connected to the interstate grid. That clarity means fewer court fights and faster implementation.
Yes, private grids may carry higher upfront costs. But for many customers, especially those facing steep interconnection charges or who value speed or reliability (including other businesses with equipment that does not respond well to brownouts, load sharing, or demand response), paying a premium makes sense. And many large users in Maryland are already paying that premium including hospitals that have their own generating plants except that today they are connected to the grid.
And as technology evolves, cost curves will invert, making off grid providers even more competitive.
The Bigger Picture
At the societal level, the benefit of competition is not just about today’s electricity mix; it’s about bringing the dynamism of market forces to an industry still regulated like it was 1925, not 2025. Innovation thrives in environments where entrepreneurs are free to try, fail, and try again. An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal discussing the New Hampshire law used the historic rivalry between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to argue that innovation in the electricity industry has come from individuals like those and not from government regulation.
Maryland and the nation should welcome the chance to let private providers operate off grid. The risks are minimal, the upside is significant, and the urgency, given Maryland’s increasing reliance on imported power, is undeniable. With legislation enacted in early 2026, electricity could be produced in 2027.
AI is the Manhattan Project of our generation, and Maryland should not miss out on this opportunity.
Conclusion
Maryland should follow New Hampshire’s lead and allow off grid electricity providers. In fact, every state should. By stepping out of the way and letting innovation flourish, policymakers can accelerate solutions to our electricity challenges without taxpayer subsidies, without adding bureaucracy, and with substantial benefits to consumers.
It is time to modernize electricity law for a modern energy economy.
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