How BGE’s energy efficiency programs are powering Maryland’s economy

Since 2009, Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) has administered EmPOWER Maryland, the state’s flagship suite of energy efficiency and demand response programs. Serving millions of residential and commercial customers across the Baltimore metropolitan region, BGE has delivered more than 17 million MWh in cumulative electricity savings through its program portfolio. Partnering with ICF, BGE set out to tell the fuller economic and affordability story of the programs’ impact, one that extends beyond customers’ bills to the economic benefits EmPOWER generates for neighborhoods, businesses, and tax bases that make up Maryland’s economy.

Challenge

The value of energy efficiency programs is typically assessed through the savings they deliver: kilowatt-hours reduced, peak demand avoided, carbon emissions cut. But the benefits of well-designed programs run deeper. Lower energy bills ease financial pressure for households and businesses, and those savings ripple outward through local economies in ways that are rarely considered when evaluating the value of these types of programs.

BGE sought to understand and demonstrate the complete scope of their programs’ benefits beyond energy savings for customers, policymakers, regulators, and community stakeholders alike. To do that credibly, they needed a rigorous, defensible methodology.

Solution

ICF has supported the planning and implementation of BGE’s EmPOWER programs since 2008, and our economics team brings extensive experience in economic impact modeling of energy and infrastructure programs and policies across the country. With that foundation of program expertise and economic rigor, we conducted a comprehensive economic analysis to estimate EmPOWER programs’ significant contributions to local economic development, using well-established regional economic impact modeling techniques.

The analysis covered the two major program types BGE administers under EmPOWER: EE&C programs for residential and C&I customers, and demand response programs. We translated program expenditure data into detailed modeling inputs that benefited the various local business and Maryland households and used that information to estimate direct, indirect, and induced economic impacts across BGE’s nine-county service territory.

Our analysis also captured the economic stimulus generated by energy bill savings, which is the spending in the local communities that happens when households and businesses have more money in their pockets. By accounting for both the investment side and the savings side, ICF gave BGE a complete picture of how its programs ripple outward through Maryland's economy.

Results

Drawing on 2024 program activity and lifetime energy savings from measures installed that year, our economic analysis found that the EmPOWER programs supported more than 5,600 jobs across Maryland, spanning construction, professional services, manufacturing, and retail. The programs generated nearly $1.5 billion in total economic output and, excluding intermediate inputs, contributed more than $791 million to Maryland’s Gross State Product. The boost to local economic activities also generated over $180 million in annual tax revenues, including $72 million in state and local taxes supporting schools, roads, and community infrastructure.

Affordability was a central theme of our findings. By helping to reduce customer energy bills, BGE’s programs freed up household and business income that flowed back into local communities, supporting jobs at local retailers, service providers, and other businesses across the state. BGE customers investing in energy efficient equipment also drove business for local construction companies and suppliers who provided the goods and services to make those upgrades possible.

The economic return was substantial: for every dollar BGE invested in program costs, we found nearly $7.90 in total economic output. That’s an almost eightfold return, with roughly half driven by direct program investments and half by the downstream effects of those customer savings. These numbers provide further validation that energy conservation helps strengthen local communities and provide significant returns for the investments made, and the impact extends to every corner of the communities BGE serves.