Several cost-saving energy projects were delayed for years under PSC Chairman Emile Thompson
DC’s most powerful utility regulator has been on a media blitz. Chairman Emile Thompson of DC’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has made lots of noise to say DC’s high bills aren’t his fault: churning out press releases, op-eds, and even social media posts on official PSC accounts as he defensively claims he doesn’t control the cost of electricity. In reality, no one person controls the cost of electricity, but Thompson sure does have a lot of influence—and his lack of leadership has made DC’s bills far more expensive. A rash of delayed projects, local energy initiatives, and ignored industry-standard operations have not only forced us to buy expensive electricity from an over-inflated market, but Thompson’s decisions have made even delivering that electricity to your door more expensive for you.
Your typical electric bill is broken up into parts: supply (cost of electricity) + transmission (a kind of highway toll charge from the wholesale market) + delivery (rate that Pepco charges to bring electricity to your door). There are other small surcharges included that cover other DC programs. Thompson’s argument is that he only controls delivery charges, which make up ~27% of the average bill. Nevermind the fact that since 2021, Chairman Thompson approved over$200 million in rate hikes for Pepco on the backs of DC households and businesses, effectively raising the average bill by $200/year in increased fees alone.
Instead, per Thompson, the real issue is supply. Since DC is geographically constrained, we have to import all our power (since we can’t just build a massive gas plant or solar farm in the District). Rather, we must rely on the expensive, volatile PJM market. But that’s not entirely true. DC has the power to procure renewable energy through power purchase agreements (PPAs), which are long-term contracts that stabilize prices and reduce reliance on the PJM market by buying directly from energy producers like nearby wind and solar farms. Using PPAs essentially cuts out the erratic middleman: why buy produce from the grocery store when I have a cheaper agreement from the farmer?
The PJM market has been extremely unreliable for energy affordability, impacted by data center buildouts and seeing a capacity price hike of 833% in just one year. This means that as Virginia and Maryland approve datacenters, energy price hikes also hit DC, even though our city isn’t hosting these datacenters.
In 2019, the PSC started a pilot program to procure just 5% of DC’s total electricity through these PPAs, but through poor oversight, this pilot took six years to even begin, with Pepco not filing an executed Renewable Energy Purchase Agreement until July 2025. Frustrated by the slow-walking, a separate commissioner, Richard Beverly, moved the requirement from 5% to 25%, aiming to protect DC residents from wholesale price shocks. The RFPs moved forward, but not without Chairman Thompson trying to stall the project for more useless bureaucratic noise, effectively leaving DC residents vulnerable to the same expensive market Thompson is now blaming for your high electricity bill. (He was thankfully overruled by Commissioners Beverly and Trabue in a rare occurrence since Trabue usually sides with Thompson’s bad decisions.)
Thompson’s slow, unambitious leadership doesn’t stop with our city’s energy contracts: it also extends to creating our own cheap energy in the District. The PSC is responsible for planning and advancing distributed energy resources (DERs), battery storage, and grid modernization, which are identified as major cost-savings for both the individual and city, at-large. However, instead of swift implementation like citieselsewhere, Thompson and his staff have kept these projects in a never-ending bureaucratic backlog of working groups. The SOWs for cost-savings projects were completed in 2021, yet continued to be mired by delays. Baffled by the slowness, Commissioner Beverly sent a public letter in late 2024 inquiring about the timeline (a kind of public shaming for the staff’s gridlock). In addition, he pointed out these ready-to-go projects have been collecting dust on a shelf, simply awaiting Thompson’s approval.
Now, only five years later when energy costs are at all-time highs, a partnership has finally been announced, placing DC far behind climate-progressive peer cities.
And how could we forget about the mess of solar in DC? As PSC Chair, Thompson is responsible for regulating solar interconnection, but through motives that run in opposition to common sense, he has allowed Pepco to stall solar deployment with unpredictably exorbitant costs and long wait times. Interconnection cost estimates from Pepco range from nothing at all to over $100,000; without standardized cost and permitting measures, this allowed Pepco to ice out residential and community solar projects through red tape, exorbitant fees, and years-long permitting waits. (Virginia also dealt with similar red tape issues from the very powerful Dominion Energy). Instead of regulating, Thompson sat on his hands, surrendering control to Pepco, a for-profit utility with no financial motivation to advance solar, therefore guaranteeing less cheap energy is generated here in DC.
The fight to make solar installation cheaper and quicker has dragged on for years (see FC1050 at the PSC), prompting DC Councilmembers to legislate a fix to these issues since Chairman Thompson seems fully unwilling in his job. The refusal by Thompson to regulate Pepco borders on neglect of duty as he rarely levies fines when Pepco blatantly defies legal orders. Just recently, Pepco refused to comply with simple data requests, violating months-late requests. Thompson only threatened a fine (as he did previously), but never actually followed through, allowing a corporation to once again escape consequences.
Yes, supply costs are a problem, and Chairman Thompson is a huge part of that problem. At nearly every step, Thompson has stumbled into a wrong decision: approving rate hikes, slow-walking projects, and showing a mind-boggling lack of interest in being a regulator. Like so many other leaders this decade, Thompson has been asleep at the wheel, relying on a status quo cruise control that has driven us straight into a life-threatening energy affordability crisis.
DC deserves new leaders that are actually interested in leading. Inaction and corporate deference has led us to its natural conclusion: unaffordable bills, gridlocked PSC staff, and utilities posting record profits on the backs of regular people. If we want lower bills, we will need new leaders because Chairman Emile Thompson is not the man for the job.