Washington DC business energy: Pepco and gas

A district rather than a state: one commission regulates both fuels

Every other market covered on this site is regulated inside a state. The District of Columbia is regulated on its own terms, by the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia, and its rules sit in Title 15 of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations rather than in a state code. Two utilities divide the work: Pepco delivers electricity and Washington Gas delivers natural gas, and each holds the delivery wires or mains for its fuel. On top of that delivery monopoly the Commission runs a competitive retail market on both sides. Its own pages describe the District as having competitive markets for electricity and for natural gas, with dozens of licensed suppliers offering different rate structures, contract terms and renewable-energy options, and it maintains a supplier application route for companies that want to enter either market. The practical consequence for a District business is that both commodities are shopable, but they are two separate transactions with two separate licences, and the delivery half of each bill is set by the same body in a tariff proceeding. The Commission's own pages carry the electric and gas tariffs that set those delivery charges, and its eDocket system is where the filings that change them are recorded, so the pace of a delivery-rate change is visible rather than announced after the fact.

• Pepco is the electric distribution utility for the District; Washington Gas is the gas distribution utility.
• The Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia regulates both and licenses competitive suppliers for both fuels.
• District rules sit in Title 15 of the DC Municipal Regulations rather than in a state code.
• Two commodities mean two supplier agreements and two licences; an electric supplier need not be a gas supplier.
• Delivery stays with the utility whichever supplier sells the commodity.

Standard Offer Service is the electric default, and the Commission publishes it

A District account that has not chosen a supplier is served at Standard Offer Service, the default generation supply. Two things about it are unusual and both matter to a buyer. The first is that the Commission publishes the rate itself: its electric pages carry a dedicated Standard Offer Service rates section, and the current cycle took effect on 1 July 2026, so the number is a published default rather than a figure a supplier quotes. The second is that the Commission also publishes the surrounding apparatus a buyer needs to check that default against an offer -- the electric tariffs, an electric bill calculator, the Renewable Portfolio Standard program and a biennial fuel-mix report. Reading the default and the calculator together answers the question most operators ask first, which is what part of the bill a supplier is actually competing for. The answer is the generation supply. Distribution, the standard-offer administration and every commission surcharge stay where they are. The Renewable Portfolio Standard program is administered in the same place, so a business weighing renewable attributes can see how the compliance market and the voluntary one relate before it treats a green product as interchangeable with the default. The reset is annual rather than continuous, and the date is worth diarising. Pepco buys Standard Offer Service supply at an annual wholesale auction, the Commission reviews and approves the results, and in a normal year the approved rates take effect on 1 June; for the 2026 auction the Commission approved on 20 May 2026 and the company deferred implementation by a month, to 1 July, to let its rate-development and billing systems catch up. The Commission's own notice quantified that change by class rather than in one headline: an average of 4.7 per cent for small commercial accounts at or below 100 kW, 5.2 per cent for larger commercial accounts, and 6.8 per cent for master-metered accounts, attributed to plant retirements tightening regional supply, new reliability requirements, demand from data centres and higher renewable obligations. Two things follow for a business comparing an offer against the default. The first is that a supply contract signed in the spring is being measured against a number that is about to move, so the comparison belongs on the reset date rather than on the day of signature. The second is that a default which steps once a year moves on a different clock from a market that moves daily, which is why a fixed offer and an indexed one can look alike in one month and part company in the next.

• Standard Offer Service is the default supply for customers who have not chosen a supplier.
• The Commission publishes the SOS rate; the cycle in effect began 1 July 2026.
• The default re-prices at an annual auction the Commission approves each May, normally effective 1 June.
• The Commission also publishes electric tariffs, an electric bill calculator and the RPS program.
• A competitive offer competes for the generation supply, not for distribution or the surcharges.
• Compare the offer against SOS on the reset date, at the account's own usage, not against the whole bill.

The gas half runs through a customer choice programme and a pipeline programme

Natural gas in the District is delivered by Washington Gas, which runs its own customer choice programme for customers who want a supplier other than the utility's own commodity service, and separately handles the administrative side of switching, including the automatic name change process that puts the account into a new supplier's name. The delivery side is where the District's gas story gets distinctive. The Commission's natural gas pages carry the gas tariffs, a natural gas bill calculator and the Washington Gas pipeline replacement programme, which is the mechanism that recovers the cost of replacing ageing mains -- spending that lands on the delivery half of every gas bill in the District and cannot be shopped away. For a heating-led site the arithmetic that decides whether a gas offer is worth taking is the same as anywhere: split twelve months of therms into the heating season and the rest, and see what share of annual volume sits in the coldest months, because that share is what a winter spike costs. Washington Gas's own site also lists a supplier development programme for companies that want to do business with it, and an interruptible customer class for sites whose operations can accept curtailed delivery in exchange for a different arrangement.

• Washington Gas delivers the gas and runs a customer choice programme for competitive supply.
• Switching involves an automatic name change process on the utility account.
• The Commission publishes the gas tariffs and a natural gas bill calculator.
• The pipeline replacement programme sits on the delivery side and is not shoppable.
• Compute the winter share of the site's own twelve-month therm history before judging a gas offer.

Benchmarking starts at 10,000 square feet, and it is filed each May

The District's building rules reach lower down the building stock than any other market covered here. DOEE states that the District's benchmarking laws require large buildings to track their energy and water efficiency annually and report the results for public disclosure, and that all private buildings over 10,000 square feet must submit their annual benchmarking reports by 1 May. That threshold is a fraction of the state-level lines used elsewhere: Maryland's performance standards begin at 35,000 square feet, so a District building of 12,000 square feet can carry a filing duty its Maryland counterpart does not. The report is filed with DOEE rather than with the utility, and the utility bill is only the raw material for it -- a landlord, a property manager, or a tenant on a master-metered lease each need to know which of them holds the obligation before the May date arrives. The reporting duty is also not the same thing as the performance standard that follows it, and because the District administers both through the same department, the record a building files in May becomes the record its later compliance is measured against.

• All private buildings over 10,000 square feet file an annual benchmarking report.
• The filing date is 1 May, and the report goes to DOEE for public disclosure.
• The 10,000 square foot line is well below Maryland's 35,000 square foot performance threshold.
• The building's utility bills are the input; the obligation attaches to the building.
• Establish who holds the account -- owner, manager or tenant -- before the filing date.

The Building Energy Performance Standards, and the cycle that follows a miss

Benchmarking is the reporting half of the District's regime; the Building Energy Performance Standards are the performance half, and the mechanics are specific enough to plan against. The standards were set out in Title III of the Clean Energy DC Omnibus Act of 2018, and DOEE is required to establish them every six years, creating successive BEPS periods. The Period 1 standards are found in 20 DCMR 3530. For Period 1 the programme applied to privately-owned buildings of at least 50,000 square feet of gross floor area and to District-owned or District instrumentality-owned buildings of at least 10,000 square feet. A building that does not meet the standard for its period is placed in a five-year compliance cycle and must reach compliance through one of the pathways in the regulations by the end of it. The threshold is not fixed: it falls with each period until every building of 10,000 square feet or more is covered, which is why the benchmarking data a District operator is already filing is the same data that will decide whether the building passes later. The stated purpose is a 50 percent reduction in emissions and energy consumption by 2032. Because each period's standard is calculated from the District's own benchmarking data, a building's filed numbers are also the first evidence of where it stands against buildings of its own type.

• The standards come from Title III of the Clean Energy DC Omnibus Act of 2018, with Period 1 in 20 DCMR 3530.
• DOEE sets standards every six years, creating BEPS periods.
• Period 1 covered privately-owned buildings of 50,000 square feet or more and District-owned buildings of 10,000 square feet or more.
• A building that misses its standard enters a five-year compliance cycle and must use a regulation pathway to finish it.
• The size threshold falls each period until all buildings of 10,000 square feet or more are covered.
• The programme's stated goal is a 50 percent cut in emissions and energy consumption by 2032.

What to assemble before a District quote or a filing

The District asks for two files and a third one that is easy to forget. For electricity: the Pepco rate schedule and service voltage, twelve months of kilowatt-hours with the demand readings if the schedule is demand-metered, the current agreement's end date and the notice period written into it, and the account and meter numbers. For gas: twelve months of therms split by month, plus the schedule printed on the Washington Gas bill. The third is building data, and it matters because a District building over 10,000 square feet is already required to produce it annually -- the twelve months of consumption, the water use and the building characteristics that feed the benchmarking report are the same inputs that make a supply comparison meaningful. HighGround works as an advisor-assisted channel rather than a published rate table, sourcing electricity and gas supply through the Broker Online Exchange supplier network. HighGround may receive provider compensation on completed purchases, and an inquiry places no order and switches no supplier.

• Electric: Pepco rate schedule, service voltage, twelve months of kWh with demand readings, and the agreement's end date and notice period.
• Gas: twelve months of therms split by month, and the schedule on the Washington Gas bill.
• Building data: the same consumption, water and characteristic inputs the annual benchmarking report needs.
• Confirm which utility serves the address, since delivery decides whether a supplier conversation is available at all.
• Competitive supply depends on the service address, the meter and the utility territory; municipal utilities, cooperatives and some jurisdictions have no choice at all.
• HighGround may receive provider compensation on completed purchases, and an inquiry places no order and switches no supplier.

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