Potomac Edison commercial electricity

What the U.S. government data says about Potomac Edison

• Commercial customers32,5082025, EIA Form EIA-861
• Buy energy from a supplier72%of commercial kWh · 32% of customers
• Delivery price4.54¢average per kWh, delivery-only customers
• Default-service price15.94¢per kWh, customers on bundled service
• Outages174 mina year per customer · US average 124

In 2025, 72% of the commercial kWh delivered by Potomac Edison went to customers buying energy from a competitive supplier, and 28% stayed on the utility's default service. By customer count it is 32%, because the businesses that shop tend to be the larger ones.

Potomac Edison’s delivery charges averaged 4.54¢ per kWh across its 10,532 delivery-only commercial customers: the part of the bill no supplier can change. It is an average over customers of every size. Large customers pay far less per kWh than small ones, so your own delivery charge per kWh will differ; the average customer here used about 12,129 kWh a month.

Potomac Edison customers went without power for an average of 174 minutes in 2025, excluding major storms, with about 1.05 interruptions per customer. The average across U.S. utilities reporting the same way is 124 minutes.

EIA records Potomac Edison serving customers in 7 Maryland counties: Allegany, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, Howard, Montgomery, Washington. A county can be shared between utilities, so this does not tell you who serves a given address.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861, 2025 final data. Averages across all commercial customers of each service type: dated context, not a quote and not an available offer.

What Potomac Edison controls and what it does not

Cities and areas in this territory

Territory boundaries do not follow city limits. Two addresses on the same street can sit in different territories, which is why we confirm the Account number rather than inferring eligibility from the city or the ZIP code. Inferring from location is the most common way a commercial account is told it can do something it cannot.

Hagerstown · Frederick · Cumberland

Which lever moves which charge

This is the question a utility page exists to answer. If you change something at the meter, which line on the bill actually moves — and which one does not move no matter what you do?

Fixed customer chargeNothing you do

A flat monthly amount for being connected. It does not move with consumption or with peak.

No lever

Volumetric distributionHow much you use

Charged per kilowatt-hour. This is the line that efficiency work moves.

Use less

Demand chargeHow hard you draw

Charged per kilowatt of billed demand. Set by your highest interval, not by your total — which is why cutting consumption may not move it at all.

Lower the peak

Riders and surchargesRegulatory filings

Adjusted periodically through approved filings. They step rather than scale, and nothing you do at the meter changes them.

No lever

Schematic shapes, not Potomac Edison's actual rates — those come from the filed tariff. The point is the behaviour: two of these four respond to something you control, and a supplier changes none of them.

What sits inside the delivery charge from Potomac Edison

Delivery is not one number. On a commercial account it is typically assembled from several components, each set by the filed tariff and each behaving differently as your usage changes:

• A fixed customer or meter charge, which does not move with consumption at all.
• A volumetric distribution charge per kWh, which scales with how much you use.
• A demand charge per kW where the account is demand-metered, which scales with how hard you draw rather than how much you use — and which is where a low load factor account gets hurt.
• Riders and surcharges, adjusted periodically through regulatory filings, covering items such as transmission cost recovery, energy efficiency programs and storm or system restoration costs.

None of these changes when you change supplier. Understanding the mix matters because it determines which action actually moves your bill: reducing consumption attacks the volumetric component, reducing peak draw attacks the demand component, and neither one touches the fixed charge.

The other territories in Maryland

Boundaries do not follow city limits. If you are not certain which of these serves your address, confirm the Account number printed on the bill rather than inferring it from the city.

What to pull off a Potomac Edison bill before any conversation

• Account number — the identifier that determines territory and eligibility
• Rate schedule code as printed on the bill
• 12 months of kWh, and peak kW if the account is demand-metered
• The delivery and supply sections, kept separate
• Current supplier and contract expiry, if any