On November 3, 2025 the Howard County Council voted to grant a 3,600 square foot easement on County property to allow BGE to install an EV charging station at the Elkridge Library. The resolution, CR169-2025, had been tabled from the October legislative session. Council Chair Liz Walsh expressed concern about the general lack of parking at the library and the prospect of reserving some of the existing parking spaces for EV charging.
Proposed Amendment to Ensure Reliability
When the tabled resolution came up for a vote on Monday, Walsh moved to add an amendment to impose maintenance and functionality requirements for the BGE-owned charging station as a condition of the easement. The amendment, proposed by Walsh, stated, “BG&E shall maintain uptime standards for each new EV charging station installed at the Elkridge Library, in accordance with Section 7-904 of the Public Utilities Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland.” The cited statute is Maryland’s Electric Vehicle Charging Reliability Act (HB 834) which was signed into law in 2023 and requires 97% uptime in accordance with NEVI for the state’s utility-owned EV charging stations. The amendment further stated that failure to maintain uptime to standards would result in a civil penalty from the County of up to $1,000 for each violation.
Charger Reliability Concerns
Those of you who have EV charging stations in your own districts may notice that they don’t seem to be consistently working, and so this was our effort to ensure that in exchange for a loss of parking available to everyone, we actually had charging stations that worked. -Liz Walsh, Chair
The concerns that lead to the amendment are well-founded. Many BGE-owned EV charging stations on Howard County properties have had a poor track record for reliability. According to BGE’s own data submitted to the Public Service Commission, more than half (31 of the 58) BGE charging plugs located in Howard County failed to achieve 97% average uptime during the 3rd Quarter of 2025. Four BGE fast charger plugs located at the old County Courthouse never worked at all during the period from July 1 to September 30, 2025.
Last year, the Public Service Commission ordered the utilities to stop installing new charging stations because of concerns over low utilization and reliability issues. The Commission did, however, allow a provision that any sites that were in development could still go forward. This site at Elkridge Library was one of the projects that fell under that exception.
Proposed Amendment Failed
Walsh moved the amendment and waited for it to be seconded. None of the other Council members seconded and therefore the amendment failed. The resolution itself then passed unanimously.
Council Members Explain Their Votes
In voting for the resolution, Walsh explained, “I’m going to vote yes notwithstanding my colleagues’ reluctance to even discuss Amendment 1. I know that the explanation given to us by BGE, and it will be in the bill file, we received it today, was that they couldn’t be responsible for maintenance. That’s not at all what they told us in work session. BGE is responsible for maintenance and upkeep of those and notwithstanding whatever their program may be, I will certainly be following up and I’m certain that I will be getting the calls if those units don’t work as promised. But my vote is nonetheless yes.”
Council Member Deb Jung who did not support Amendment 1 explained that she did so based on the written response from BGE, which stated that passing the amendment would jeopardize the entire project. Jung read from the BGE letter to explain her vote, “‘If Amendment 1 to CR 169 passes, BGE will be unable to move forward with the project due to the language proposed which would potentially subject BGE to penalties for situations outside of its control. BGE is sensitive to the intent of the language in the Amendment but assures the Council that oversight is already provided by the PSC,’ Public Service Commission. So I am voting yes and did not move on the amendment primarily because of this letter that we received from BGE.”
Holding BGE Accountable
Yet BGE has to date escaped any penalty from the PSC under the 2023 Reliability Act. In fact, I testified to that point to the Senate Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee earlier this year when they were considering SB 913, “Maryland already mandates 97% uptime for utility-owned chargers. However, when they fail to meet the standard, the Public Service Commission does not penalize them. Instead, utilities seek approval to spend millions more to replace equipment that is sometimes less than two years old.”
Council Chair Liz Walsh was correct to be concerned. The library already had a two-port Level 2 station when it opened in March 2018. The charger was highlighted as a green feature yet it was often offline and eventually removed. With the Howard County Council now giving BGE the green light, let’s hope the new station achieves the state-mandated 97% uptime and that the PSC finally enforces the law if it doesn’t.
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