SMECO is a member-owned cooperative, and its board is elected by members like you. Yet management resists rooftop and community solar — calling a customer generating its own power a “subsidy paid by everyone else.” Put the real numbers on one scale and that story falls apart. The board can change this — and the board is on the ballot right now.
Community solar lets you subscribe to a share of a local solar farm — no rooftop, no upfront cost, cancel anytime — and get bill credits worth more than your subscription. Every Maryland utility offers it except SMECO. Here’s what your household is missing.
The one item SMECO calls a “subsidy,” set beside the costs and denied savings its own choices impose on you. Same scale, annual dollars per household.
Hover any bar for the math. The “subsidy” management complains about is the smallest sliver on the chart — and it isn’t even a real cash cost.
What community solar is: you subscribe to a share of a local solar farm — no rooftop, no upfront cost, cancel anytime — and get utility bill credits worth more than your subscription. Maryland reserves 40% of every project for low-income households (a guaranteed ≥10% discount); the rest is open to any member, typically 5–10% off and up to ~20% on the most generous plans. SMECO is the only Maryland utility that opted its members out of all of it.
And the one item SMECO calls a “subsidy”? Net metering — and it isn’t even a real loss. A regulated co-op earns its margin on the poles and wires (~$0.054/kWh), not on the energy itself (a pass-through it profits nothing on). SMECO’s entire year-end net-metering credit outlay was $220,271.70 — about 0.04% of its $542M revenue (MD PSC 2025 Net Metering Report).
What the co-op earned, what it actually handed back to you, what it paid its executives, and the “subsidy” it says it can’t afford. All per member, one scale.
SMECO earned ~$139 per member in 2025 — more than double 2024 — while telling members it can’t afford net metering. The CEO’s pay alone ($1.08M) is nearly five times the co-op’s entire $220K net-metering credit outlay. The “subsidy”? About $1.26 per member per year — and it isn’t even a real cost.
Here is the tell. SMECO grows revenue by investing capital and winning rate increases to recover it — not by selling energy, which is a pass-through. Rooftop and community solar lower your bill, defer grid spending, and shave the peak that sets PJM’s capacity charge — now at its all-time federal cap. That’s good for the owners and against management’s rate-base incentive. A member-owned cooperative behaving like a rate-base monopoly, against the interests of the people who own it — that is the whole story. And it is your board’s job to stop it.
Bills are climbing toward an ~11× PJM capacity cap — and here is the entire substantive business the board put before members this year, beside what an energy crisis actually calls for.
Housekeeping — plus holding member money longer.
A response to the crisis members are paying for.
Each briefing is built for that county’s delegation and officials, with local household and income numbers. Open yours to see the case — and download the one-pager to share.
Directors are elected by the membership and set SMECO’s direction. Management answers to them — and they answer to you. Add your pledge, then vote before Aug 12 and ask every candidate where they stand on: