On Monday, November 2, the day before Election Day, more than 1,100 Pepco customers in downtown Washington, D.C. lost power. The cause: a problem at the company’s I Street Substation. Smoke came out of manholes in the 1800 block of H Street NW, traffic signals went dark, and George Washington University canceled classes for students. Even the World Bank’s office lost power. Power was restored by mid-afternoon, but Pepco says the cause is still under investigation.
This is not the first time something like this has happened. In July 2025, multiple equipment failures at Pepco’s 22nd Street substation left about 1,800 customers in Dupont Circle and the West End without power. Outages kept recurring for days. At one point, Pepco cut power to hundreds more customers to avoid further damage to the substation.
Exelon, Pepco’s parent company, and its subsidiaries are constantly asking for more money for new projects. In August, Maryland regulators approved a $51 million increase in Pepco’s electric distribution rates. Exelon’s reasoning is that it needs to create more capacity, but how can it do that when it can’t even sustain the projects and infrastructure it already has? Three days before the outage, Exelon’s earnings release praised its utilities for ranking among the most reliable in the nation. That is hard to believe with another substation-related outage in the heart of Washington, just over a year after the problems at 22nd Street.
The most recent outage also came weeks after the Department of Energy issued an emergency order covering D.C. and 13 states over concerns about electricity supply. So why is Exelon continuously asking for more? Why is it starting new projects? Why is it actively trying to get into the generation space? It should be focusing on problems that need its attention now.
Before Exelon tells ratepayers to finance its next big idea to profit its wealthy shareholders, it should first prove it can keep the lights on with what it has.
