About a year and a half after Maryland Delegate Al Carr (D-18) asked the Public Service Commission (PSC) to make Pepco improve street lighting repairs and billing system, his efforts proved fruitful.
Because neither Pepco nor the PSC filed an appeal to Carr’s request, that request became a final order of the commission Thursday.
According to Carr, Pepco incorrectly bills Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and their municipalities.
He also charged that the utility is slow to repair streetlights and has “errors and omissions” on its online outage maps, making it difficult to report broken or unclean streetlights. Because of that, some streets are dark and could be dangerous, he said.
Carr filed a formal complaint in October of 2022 that largely was backed by staff members at the commission who noted that Pepco didn’t meet its internal goal of completing 90% of streetlight repairs within five business days.
There are more than 100,000 streetlights on local roads throughout Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, many of which are owned and maintained by Pepco.
In Montgomery County, there are 28,021 utility-owned streetlights and 25,475 owned by the governments, creating an annual street light expenditure of about $9 million.
Gaithersburg has 507 streetlights owned by utilities and 3,559 owned by its government, for an annual expense of about $700,000. Rockville has 2,700 streetlights that are utility owned and 3,200 that are government owned for an annual expense of about $850,000.
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