FirstEnergy to reinstate discount

By MARC KOVAC

news@vindy.com

COLUMBUS

State regulators have reinstated discounts for FirstEnergy’s all-electric customers, ordering the company to return to rates in effect in 2008.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio plans to work over the next three months to develop new rates for those customers to prevent the large increases in bills some have experienced in recent months and still enable FirstEnergy to recoup its costs to provide electricity.

Asked whether FirstEnergy shareholders or customers would end up footing the bill for the discounts, PUCO Chairman Alan Schriber said, “Either one of those is a possibility. That’s for the staff at this point to determine.”

He added, “There was an agreement in [2009] among all the parties that the company was entitled to a certain level of revenues. To the extent that we pull back with these discounts, there’s going to be a shortfall in those revenues. Whether the stockholders pay for it or whether this shortfall is spread across all others is yet to be determined.”

Wednesday’s decision is separate from another issue between PUCO and FirstEnergy — the distribution of millions of compact fluorescent light bulbs to customers, charging them for the costs involved. PUCO is playing host to evidentiary hearings in Columbus this week on the company’s state-mandated energy efficiency plan, which includes a revamped light-bulb distribution.

The latest issue before PUCO involves discounts for all-electric homes that have been in place for more than three decades.

The discounts provided an incentive for customers to install electric water and space heaters in their homes, providing an outlet for FirstEnergy’s unused electric capacity during winter months. The company has about 100,000 all-electric customers, said Ellen Raines, company spokeswoman.

Last year, FirstEnergy received approval from PUCO for plans to consolidate its 32 different residential rates into a single one, eliminating the all-electric discount in the process.