Marylanders are grappling with unusually high summer electricity bills after weeks of heat waves and high temperatures, plus rate hikes tied to approved projects by Baltimore Gas and Electric and other utilities.

But, come next summer, BGE customers will get a tiny break, thanks to the outcome of a capacity market auction, the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel said Thursday.

The capacity market auction is a process that sets the wholesale price for electricity in the region, which covers 65 million consumers from 13 states and Washington. The region’s grid operator, PJM Interconnection, finalized the results of its capacity market auction this week.

The auction ensures that power generators can produce enough electricity for future demand at the lowest achievable price for consumers, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Although these results mean a lower month-to-month cost for BGE customers, the auction set a record high for the region at $329 per megawatt day, up from the $270 per megawatt day that’s in effect now and was set last year.

Delmarva and Potomac Edison customers will see more than $5 and $3 rises, respectively, coming from the supply side. Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, Pepco and BGE customers get a $2.50-$3 per month break, according to the People’s Counsel, which analyzed the auction results.

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Last year’s auction prices created a $16 per month increase that kicked in last month. The Maryland Public Service Commission issued an order in May requiring BGE to mitigate the effects of the supply-side increase for its customers by shifting the recovery of those costs to lower-usage months in the fall and spring.

What’s driving this increase? The People’s Counsel points to the energy-hungry data centers in Northern Virginia.

David Lapp, who leads the office, warned in April that electric utility customers could soon be on the hook for $800 million in transmission upgrades to power Northern Virginia data centers.

“The auction results further demonstrate the extraordinary costs being imposed on Maryland residential customers to support the massive power demands of data centers — mostly located outside of Maryland,” Lapp said in a statement Thursday. “Residential customers are not causing these excessive costs and should not be paying for them.”

But the delayed retirement of the Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner power plants in Anne Arundel County, which PJM did not include in the capacity market auction that set the prices customers see on bills now, drove up the auction results by $5 billion, according to the People’s Counsel.

The auction that just ended and set prices for next year, however, did include energy produced by the plants, which will continue running until at least 2028 through a reliability-must-run agreement.

The People’s Counsel has been fighting for changes to the capacity market auction rules on behalf of Maryland ratepayers.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, with support from Gov. Wes Moore and other state leaders in the PJM service area, prevented “runaway prices,” according to an April release from Shapiro‘s office.

Shapiro sued PJM in December over price hikes from the capacity auction. Pennsylvania is a powerhouse for energy and the largest generator of electricity in the PJM region, according to a report from Monitoring Analytics.

FERC approved a settlement with PJM in April to cap the auction price at $325 per megawatt day, instead of $500 per megawatt day, preventing a massive price hike for all in the PJM service territory. The cap saves ratepayers over $21 billion over the next two years.

There are other forms of rate relief available.

Maryland utility customers will get one of two $40 rebates as soon as August or September, as part of the $200 million that state legislators earmarked in legislation this year. The second rebate should happen in January or February next year.

And some low- to moderate-income BGE customers can apply for a one-time $250-$750 grant.