What the Dickerson Incinerator’s Electricity Is Worth to Montgomery County

With the Montgomery County Council’s 6-5 vote on Tuesday to keep the Dickerson incinerator, the county’s Resource Recovery Facility will keep doing two jobs: burning the county’s trash and generating electricity that is sold on the regional power grid. The county projected about $23 million in electricity revenue for fiscal 2025, money that offsets what it spends to run the plant.

What’s in it

• Who buys the power and where the money goes
• How much power the plant makes
• What changed in state law this year

Who buys the power, and where the money goes

The Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority sells the plant’s electricity into the PJM regional grid’s energy and capacity markets on the county’s behalf, according to the authority’s fiscal 2026 work plan (page 16). The revenue is credited against what the county pays to run the plant. In the fiscal 2023 budget, for example, the county counted about $14.4 million in recommended electricity sales revenue and paid the plant’s operator a revenue share of about $900,000, according to a May 2022 committee memo (page 8).

For fiscal 2025, the county’s Department of Environmental Protection projected electricity revenue, including renewable energy credits, of about $23 million against a budgeted $20.2 million, and noted that the revenue “can fluctuate significantly from year to year,” according to Council committee materials from May 2025 (page 77).

How much power the plant makes

The authority describes the plant as generating “up to 55 megawatts of renewable energy, enough power for 40,000 homes” on its website. Federal Energy Information Administration data lists its net capacity at 54 megawatts in summer and 56 in winter, and shows actual generation falling from 352,401 megawatt-hours in 2021 to 254,187 in 2025.

The county put the plant’s output at about 27,000 homes’ worth in its rate assumptions (Oct. 27 memo, page 5). Using Maryland’s 2025 average household electricity use from federal data, 2025’s output works out to roughly 22,400 homes, a Moderately MOCO estimate. DEP has described normal operations as about 455,000 megawatt-hours a year, while noting that output “fluctuates depending on actual operating conditions, repairs, and outages” (Sept. 15 Council staff report, page 23); actual generation has run 56% to 77% of that figure since 2021.

The power does not go to specific homes. It feeds the PJM grid, which serves more than 67 million people, so the plant’s future does not determine whether any particular household has electricity.

Montgomery Community Media asked county officials about the plant’s electricity at an Oct. 21 resident question-and-answer session.

What changed in state law this year

Maryland’s 2025 Next Generation Energy Act removed waste-to-energy from the top tier of the state’s renewable energy program. For facilities owned by a public body, like the county’s, the change took effect July 1, 2026 (page 74). County Executive Marc Elrich told legislators last year that the change would cost the county revenue from renewable energy credit sales.

Those credit sales brought the county $6.5 million in fiscal 2022, $10.3 million in fiscal 2023 and $12.2 million in fiscal 2024, according to the state’s fiscal note on the bill (pages 1-2). The Department of Environmental Protection’s August rate model counted a $7.8 million loss of credit revenue under the option to keep the plant open (Oct. 27 Council staff memo, page 24).

Still unanswered

• How much did the county net from electricity alone in fiscal 2026, after the operator’s share, and what is budgeted for fiscal 2027?
• Have the plant’s renewable energy credits had any value since July 1, for example in other states’ programs?
• How would the major refurbishment the Council’s resolution calls for affect power sales while the plant is being upgraded?

We have not yet put these questions to the Department of Environmental Protection or the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority; this story will be updated with any response.

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