WASHINGTON — After a nearly yearlong back-and-forth with Pepco, a Maryland homeowner is asking the utility and its regulators to make it easier to switch to solar energy.
A few months after moving to her Gaithersburg, Maryland home, Merryl Azriel contacted Solar City to fulfill her goal of equipping her home with solar panels.
“Solar City owns the panels. We pay them a utility fee, which is still less than we’d pay Pepco,” Azriel says.
Two months later, the panels were installed, inspected by the municipality and ready to be hooked up to Pepco. But Azriel says that last step took nine months.
“I’m completely convinced that the reason this took so long is that Pepco makes more money off me as a utility customer if I’m using their electricity instead of solar power,” she says.
In a statement response, Sean Kelly with Pepco says it supports renewable energy.
“In the last year, the number of applications to install solar in our Maryland service territory increased by more than 130 percent. ‘Green Power Connection’ is our team of account coordinators and technical consultants dedicated to helping customers throughout the process. Customers should be prepared to follow an authorization and certification process that can be delayed due to lapses in meeting necessary application criteria including, most importantly, the final safety inspection.”
Azriel did have a hitch when it came to her inspection.
“In the whole process, there was only one hiccup where Pepco objected to some of the paperwork filled out by our municipality,” she says.
This is an example of what the utility points to as delays in meeting application criteria.
Though she’s happy with the result, Azriel says shes disappointed in how long her process took, and offers a tip to other homeowners considering solar.
“I’d definitely warn them about the hazards and delays they’d encounter with Pepco. And I’d encourage them not to buy their own solar panels, because then you’ve got $20,000 on the line that is just a sunk investment until you can get Pepco to turn it on,” Azriel says.
