The Maryland Office of People's Counsel, which represents consumers in utility matters, has protested before federal regulators against Exelon's proposed buyout of Constellation Energy. The deal would give the combined companies too much concentrated ownership on the PJM grid that serves much of the mid-Atlantic coast, including Maryland, according to an expert hired by OPC, potentially giving them the ability to raise prices and boost profits.

Exelon and Constellation already realize that an unmodified merger would give federal antitrust authorities reason to oppose it. So their deal includes divestiture of three Maryland generation plants formerly owned by BGE. (C.V. C.P. Crane, Brandon Shores, H.A. CraneWagner.) That's not good enough, says the study commissioned by OPC and the Pennsylvania Office of Consumer Advocate. Even with those divestitures, the combined Exelon-Constellation would have too much power over wholesale electricity markets. Here's the gist:

[The meger] could leave a dominant firm in the generation market (with market share on the order of 20 percent, post-mitigation) and would not address Applicants’ ability to profitably raise electricity market prices. Since all generating units selected for dispatch in PJM receive the market clearing price, the units that can set the price are important. If market prices can be manipulated—by strategic bidding, retirements, withholding, or other means—the Applicants would be in a position to affect prices and collect higher infra-marginal revenues.