Renew Maryland Electric Supplier: Compare Rates Before Auto-Renew

Your Maryland electric supplier contract has an end date—even if you have not thought about it since you signed. When that date arrives, many agreements auto-renew into a new term or roll to a month-to-month price unless you opt out on time. The renewal rate is rarely the teaser that got you to switch. It is whatever the supplier can charge under the contract language you may not have read, benchmarked against a default service price that moves every season.

This guide is for Maryland residents and small-business owners who are renewing, re-shopping, or wondering whether to stay with a retail supplier. It explains how Maryland's split market works, why comparing rates before auto-renew matters, and how to run the math against Standard Offer Service (SOS)—your utility's default supply price, often called the price to compare.

Maryland splits supply from delivery—and only supply is negotiable

Maryland restructured retail electricity so customers in investor-owned utility territories can choose who sells them generation while the local utility still delivers power over its wires (¹). The alternate company is a retail electricity supplier (also called a power marketer). The utility—BGE, Pepco Maryland, Delmarva Power, Potomac Edison, or SMECO in most cases—remains your electric distribution company for outages, metering, and regulated delivery charges.

EIA's retail-choice FAQ describes the model: in restructured states, customers may buy electricity from a marketer while the local utility delivers it (²). Your supplier contract replaces only the supply line on the bill, not delivery riders or taxes.

Maryland's competitive footprint is large. EIA's 2024 state profile shows about 59.0 million MWh of total retail sales, split between roughly 32.0 million MWh from full-service providers and 27.1 million MWh from energy-only providers—customers buying supply competitively (³). The statewide average retail price was 15.04¢/kWh that year (³). Yet residential participation has historically been low: EIA noted residential participation in Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware had not exceeded 4% (⁴). Many households never re-shop after the first enrollment—which makes renewal discipline critical for the minority on competitive supply.

What auto-renew actually means on your contract

Auto-renew (sometimes called rollover or evergreen language) is a clause in your supply agreement that extends service past the initial term unless you send written notice by a deadline—often 30 to 90 days before expiration. The renewed price may be a fixed rate quoted in the contract, a variable index-linked rate, or a month-to-month schedule that tracks wholesale markets.

Maryland law now caps residential supply contracts at 12 months, signed in May 2024 under SB 1 (⁵). That means most home accounts face a renewal decision every year, not every two or three years. Conference committee language preserved the residential price cap and the end of residential purchase of receivables (POR) without substantive changes (⁶).

Auto-renew is not always your enemy. A fixed renewal rate can buy predictability when markets spike. The risk is passive renewal: accepting a new price without comparing it to SOS and to competing offers. The Federal Trade Commission's work on electric restructuring emphasized that consumers shop most effectively when they can compare timely, comparable information about prices and terms (⁷). Renewal is a shopping event whether or not the supplier sends a friendly reminder.

Suppliers can also exit rather than renew you. By June 2025, Maryland PSC Staff told commissioners there was "no residential supply market at this point," with retail suppliers "not making any new offers" and consumers reporting they could not find offers online or were dropped when suppliers left the state (⁸). The Retail Energy Supply Association warned that grandfathered residential fixed contracts priced below default service could become uneconomic for suppliers facing high POR discount rates—potentially forcing cancellation and a return to higher default supply (⁸). Renewal planning includes a contingency for no renewal offer at all.

Why comparing before renewal is not optional

The point of comparing before auto-renew is simple: headline enrollment rates and realized renewal rates diverge.

Maryland utilities now publish supplier-specific average residential rates. Pepco's December 2024 filing showed averages ranging from 4¢/kWh below to 11¢/kWh above default service, with two suppliers at least 10¢/kWh above SOS (⁹). At Delmarva, one supplier averaged 16¢/kWh above SOS that month (⁹). SB 1 requires this reporting precisely so customers can see marketing versus reality (⁹).

Statewide price direction matters too. EIA's latest sector table shows Maryland residential averages at 20.84¢/kWh versus 18.44¢/kWh year-over-year, commercial at 17.65¢/kWh versus 14.08¢/kWh, and an all-sectors average of 15.95¢/kWh versus 11.75¢/kWh (¹⁰). A fixed rate that looked competitive at signing can lag a rising SOS benchmark by renewal season.

For a concrete SOS anchor, BGE's Schedule R residential energy rate (supply and capacity, excluding transmission and SOS admin) was filed at 11.689¢/kWh for October 1, 2025 through May 31, 2026, up from 11.420¢/kWh for summer 2025 (¹¹). Indicative total SOS generation rates for BGE residential customers reached roughly 14.146¢/kWh in one summer filing scenario after transmission and capacity updates (¹¹). Transmission alone on BGE Schedule R moved from 1.682¢/kWh to 2.322¢/kWh effective June 1, 2025—about $6.40 per 1,000 kWh regardless of supplier (¹¹). Renewal math must use your territory's current SOS, not last year's postcard.

When competitive supply works, savings can be real. RESA estimated Maryland consumers could have saved more than $39 million in October 2023 by choosing offers below the price to compare, with 179 supplier offers under the benchmark statewide (¹²). That snapshot is not a promise for your renewal month—but it shows why active comparison beats passive rollover.

Consumer Reports advises that in states allowing supplier choice, it is worth comparing rates regularly and switching when you find a better deal, while watching promotional rates that rise after intro periods (¹³). Treat every renewal notice as that comparison moment.

SB 1 changed the rules you renew under

SB 1 reshaped Maryland's residential market in ways that directly affect renewal:

• Non-green residential offers are capped no higher than the trailing 12-month average SOS rate in your territory at signing (⁵).
• Residential terms cannot exceed 12 months (⁵).
• Residential POR ends, pushing many households toward dual billing or supplier consolidated billing instead of utility consolidated billing (⁵; ¹⁴).

Small businesses are not governed by the residential price cap or 12-month limit, but they face the same license discipline and switching mechanics. Industry observers note commercial customers participate in Northeast retail choice at much higher rates than residential customers—in part because businesses track usage and renewals more actively (¹⁵). Verify any quote matches your rate class and service address.

Through January 1, 2026, utilities reported supplier compliance with the end of residential utility consolidated billing with POR; Potomac Edison manually dropped 278 residential accounts when suppliers missed deadlines (¹⁴). Renewal may mean a billing-format change, not just a cent rate.

How to compare rates before you renew

Maryland lacks a single state portal like Texas's Power to Choose. Comparison paths include your utility's SOS pages, licensed supplier websites, and third-party tools. Licensed comparison platforms such as WattKarma advertise Maryland among their markets and ZIP-based plan filtering (¹⁶).

Build the same worksheet for your renewal offer, any switch offer, and SOS:

Run the estimate at 80%, 100%, and 120% of your last twelve months' usage. A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is one kilowatt of demand for one hour; supply cost scales with kWh, so every ¢/kWh difference is roughly $10 per month per 1¢ at 1,000 kWh usage.

Red flags at renewal time

• Renewal rate above SOS without a product reason you value (e.g., verified green power).
• No written renewal notice with the new price and opt-out deadline.
• License mismatch: Maryland's PSC supplier license category includes brokers, marketers, and aggregators—not only load-serving entities (¹⁷). Match legal entity name to PSC records before authorizing renewal.
• Unauthorized switching: The FTC's restructuring reports flagged slamming—switching without consent—as a switching-cost issue in competitive markets (⁷). Treat account numbers like bank routing numbers.

Step-by-step: renew, switch, or return to default

1. Pull your contract and highlight the renewal clause, notice deadline, and default rate if you miss the window.
2. Gather twelve months of bills—supply dollars, delivery dollars, total kWh, customer class.
3. Look up today's SOS / price to compare for your class on your utility's site.
4. Check supplier average rate reports if available for your utility (⁹).
5. Request competing quotes in writing with the same usage assumption.
6. Model all-in monthly cost including fees at three usage levels.
7. Decide by the opt-out deadline: renew only if the worksheet wins; otherwise switch or let the contract lapse to SOS.
8. Reconcile the first two post-renewal bills against your worksheet.

If no supplier beats SOS on an all-in basis—and in 2025 many residential customers could not find new offers at all (⁸)—returning to default service is a legitimate outcome. Doing nothing is still a choice: it may trigger auto-renew at an unknown rate or supplier exit.

Bottom line

Renewing a Maryland electric supplier is not a paperwork formality. It is a price negotiation with a deadline. State data show wide gaps between supplier averages and default service (⁹), rising statewide averages (¹⁰), and a residential market where new offers largely disappeared by mid-2025 (⁸). SB 1 caps residential prices and terms but still requires you to compare before auto-renew every year (⁵).

Mark your calendar 90 days before contract end. Run the SOS math. Renew only when the numbers defend themselves on paper—not because the envelope said "automatic renewal for your convenience."