Constellation Energy wants to build new power plants for Maryland — and it’s willing to rough up a sibling to make its case.

Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez argued to state lawmakers Thursday that the Baltimore-based company would be better than Exelon at building the power generation the state wants.

“If you want somebody who will take no risk, has no expertise, no talent and no land to do this — and charge you 10%," you can do that, Dominguez said in his keynote address at the Maryland Chamber of Commerce 2025 Policy Forum, an explicit dig at Exelon.

Formerly part of the same company, Constellation spun off almost four years ago for the express purpose of owning power plants and building more. Exelon is based in Chicago and owns Baltimore Gas and Electric Company and other utilities in Maryland.

Constellation and Exelon are both publicly traded.

Exelon’s interest in building power generation in Maryland had “clearly struck a nerve,” the company’s spokesman James Gherardi said in a statement.

“The generation needed in Maryland won’t build itself,” Gherardi said. “Instead of focusing on who shouldn’t build, we are focused on who will.”

Earlier this year, state leaders passed legislation to attract power generators in an attempt to ease Maryland’s reliance on imported electricity and get soaring energy bills under control. The law directed the Maryland Public Service Commission to solicit and quickly approve applications for large-capacity and peak demand energy resources.

Constellation submitted an array of generation options to the commission this month, putting a natural gas power plant, battery storage and more nuclear power on the table. Exelon, which retained the energy delivery system in the breakup, is also seeking approval to build a power plant in the state.

Constellation, based in downtown Baltimore, already is the state’s largest energy generator, operating Southern Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant and Conowingo Dam in Harford County.

BGE was forced out of the generation business more than two decades ago when the state barred utility companies from generating power. Exelon created Constellation to own its energy production, then in 2022, spun it off as a separate and unregulated energy company.

At the core of Dominguez’s case: If state leaders pick his company to address the state’s energy needs, Constellation would make the investment and pay for it.

Exelon, on the other hand, could charge ratepayers for the build-out. If the investor-owned utility company is allowed to reenter the ring, critics warn it would leave ratepayers on the hook for a new plant’s construction and operation.

Constellation’s proposals will head to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for review before returning to the Public Service Commission. From there, the PSC, an independent agency led by five governor-appointed commissioners, has 60 days to approve, conditionally approve or reject proposed projects from Constellation and others.

Maryland’s energy needs became an urgent issue for top Democrats last General Assembly session as lawmakers contended with a few compounding factors: The state relies on vast imports of electricity to address ballooning demand on the grid from data centers and increasing electrification, even as local generation has declined with the retirements of large coal plants.

Since then, public alarm over the energy demands of data centers and artificial intelligence, which are predicted to worsen already-rising electricity prices, has only grown.

Tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft are reportedly spending more than $350 billion on data centers this year alone. Meanwhile, the mid-Atlantic’s grid operator, PJM Interconnection, has projected a more than 30% surge in demand on its system by 2035.

Constellation has reaped big rewards from this boom. Just this week, the company landed a $1 billion loan from the Trump administration for restarting its Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, the site of a partial nuclear meltdown in 1979. The energy company reached a deal with Microsoft last year to turn one of the plant’s reactors back on.

A similar arrangement could be on the table in Maryland.

Dominguez said in an interview Thursday that Constellation has entertained interest in locating a data center on the site of its Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant, similar to the arrangement his company has with Microsoft.

He declined to name companies involved in those discussions but said a data center there could serve “commercial or government” purposes.

Yet Dominguez also sought to tamp down concerns about the region’s energy needs.

He told lawmakers that he doesn’t buy the projections. Only a handful of major companies have legitimate needs, while speculation by hundreds of smaller players has inflated demand.

“If we don’t know how many people are coming to dinner,” he said, “then it doesn’t make sense to do grocery shopping.”

Exelon, meanwhile, referred to rising energy demands as an “existential crisis.”

“Private energy generation corporations have not offered meaningful solutions sufficient to solve the supply crisis at the heart of rising energy costs, as the most recent bids for energy development in Maryland show once again,” Exelon’s Gherardi said.

Asked after his presentation about his criticisms of Exelon, Dominguez said: “This is the time for straight talk.”

When a company is proposing to change 25 years of Maryland law, he said, “I think someone has to speak with a pretty strong voice.”

Dominguez was frank about the repercussions, should Maryland opt for Exelon’s power-building bid.

“We would stop doing what we’re doing in the state,” he said. “We have no business being a competitive company in a state that’s chosen to go back to monopoly generation.”