PEPCO ANNOUNCES TWO NEW BOARD MEMBERS

        Potomac Electric Power Company today announced the election of Edmund B. Cronin, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of Washington Real Estate Investment Trust, and Dennis R. Wraase, PEPCO Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, to its Board of Directors.

        Cronin will fill the one-year unexpired term of A. James Clark, Chairman of the Board and President of Clark Enterprises, Inc., who has been a Director of the Company since 1977 and has reached the mandatory age for retirement. Cronin will be eligible for re-election in 1999.

        Cronin, 60, has been Trustee, President and Chief Executive Officer of Washington Real Estate Investment Trust since 1994. From 1977 until 1994, Cronin was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of H.G. Smithy Company and its various operating subsidiaries.

        Wraase succeeds former PEPCO Vice Chairman H. Lowell Davis, a Director of the Company since 1973, who has reached the mandatory age for retirement. Wraase has been elected for a three-year term ending in 2001 when he will be eligible for re-election.

        Wraase, 54, has been Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of PEPCO since 1996. He joined PEPCO in 1974 as Manager of Financial Systems and held various financial positions until his election to Vice President and Comptroller in 1985. He was named Senior Vice President and Comptroller in 1989 and Senior Vice President, Finance and Accounting in April 1992. Prior to joining PEPCO, Wraase worked for Exxon Corporation where he held several financial positions in the controller`s organization.