A Clearer Look at Electricity Prices—and Who’s Overpaying

After reading Jenya Kahn-Lang’s insightful study on electricity pricing in deregulated markets, I had one lingering question: How many people actually saved when they chose retail energy supply?

Her research highlights how aggressive, door-to-door marketing—especially in low-income neighborhoods—can lead to price discrimination. But the original charts didn’t show the BGE Standard Offer Service (SOS) rate, which acts as a key benchmark for comparison.

So I reached out and asked: Could you add the BGE Standard Offer Service rate to the chart?

Jenya kindly shared a new version of the graphic with that benchmark included—and it makes the story even clearer.

Jenya kindly shared a new version of the graphic with that benchmark included—and it makes the story even clearer.

This updated chart reflects hundreds of thousands of BGE residentialretail energy bills from September 2019. Each point represents the price a household paid for retail electricity supply that month. The black line marks the regulated SOS rate—around $0.08 per kilowatt hour.

Everything to the right of that line? Those are customers paying more than the regulated price. And the rates vary widely. 
The small slice to the left—in purple—represents the "savers" who paid less. The savers were higher income accounts.

The takeaway is hard to ignore: in just one month, hundreds of thousands of households—disproportionately in low-income areas—paid more than they needed to. Over the course of 2019 in Maryland, this “reverse Robinhood” story added up to over $89 million in excess payments beyond the SOS regulated rate.

Huge thanks to Jenya for sharing the revised chart and helping shine a brighter light on how marketing tactics and market design can impact affordability.