Energy

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) this week approved a new AEP Ohio rate structure specifically targeting large data centers with loads exceeding 25 megawatts.

The decision, aimed at addressing transmission capacity concerns, imposes higher minimum demand charges, exit fees, and collateral requirements on data center customers.

The OMA pushed back on the decision in a statement, arguing that the tariff is discriminatory, lacks sufficient evidence, and will discourage business investment in Ohio. The OMA is evaluating options to appeal the decision.

Although the PUCO ordered AEP to lift its moratorium on new service connections, it made few changes to the proposed tariff, raising concerns about fairness and transparency. 7/10/2025

Grid operator PJM Interconnection’s capacity prices for the 2025/2026 delivery year, which began in June 2025, have surged significantly compared to previous years, and manufacturers will see resulting increases to their power bills over the summer.

The OMA has critiqued PJM’s delays to its capacity auction to procure new power generation, as timely auctions are critical to secure new plants to replace retiring power plants. The auction delays combined with questionable capacity market changes by PJM and PJM’s backlogged interconnection queue for new generation, rated among the nation’s worst, have all contributed to the increases.

The OMA has recorded a presentation with information that manufacturers can use during this critical time featuring John Seryak, OMA’s Energy Engineer, and Susanne Buckley with Scioto Energy to explain what contributed to the spike in charges and what manufacturers can do to help manage their increased power bills.

Stay tuned for more coverage on this topic and others critical to the manufacturing industry, to be highlighted at the upcoming 2025 Ohio Manufacturers’ Energy Conference on Thursday, September 18. Registration opening soon! 7/10/2025

Former Speaker Householder, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for his role in the House Bill 6 bribery scheme, is asking the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider his failed appeal. Householder argues that the panel of judges should not have rejected his appeal earlier this year.

In Householder’s case, the judges previously concluded that the evidence presented was more than enough to show a quid pro quo. 7/1/2025

On June 23rd, PJM successfully served the region’s highest electricity demand in more than ten years, with regional grid load peaking at 160,526 MW. The extreme weather broke over 600 high-temperature records across the U.S. In Columbus, temperatures reached the mid-90s with the heat index near 105.

Early this week, PJM issued Maximum Generation, Load Management and Hot Weather alerts through Thursday, June 26th. These alerts are tools PJM uses to meet demand at a lower cost compared to requiring the construction of new power plants.

While some demand response resources were activated elsewhere across PJM’s 13-state footprint, no demand response was called within any Ohio zone, indicating that generation was able to meet demand without curtailment or emergency measures. Manufacturers have a direct stake in grid performance during these events, as shortfalls could impact operations and lead to costly infrastructure investments. 6/24/2025

U.S. Senator Jon Husted and U.S. Representative Bob Latta have introduced the Nuclear REFUEL Act to simplify licensing requirements for nuclear recycling facilities as a way to boost U.S. nuclear energy production.

Currently, the United States doesn’t recycle nuclear fuel at a commercial scale. The Nuclear REFUEL Act would establish a streamlined Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing procedure for nuclear fuel recycling facilities. 6/24/2025

Representatives of the OMA have presented testimony in an ongoing trial examining the public corruption culminating in House Bill 6 in 2019 that required captive utility customers to subsidize utilities and select energy companies for unneeded power plants and other corrupt mechanisms.

This week, lawyers for defendant FirstEnergy have made repeated motions to prevent the OMA witness from being heard in an effort to head off the allegations of wrongdoing. The OMA team will continue to advance manufacturers’ interests. Read more in Gongwer News. 6/24/2025

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced the repeal of the “Clean Power Plan 2.0,” which had imposed strict emission requirements on coal- and gas-fired power plants. This policy impeded progress on new competitive natural gas power plants, reduced production, and discouraged investment in new generation.

The OMA has previously supported efforts from Congressman Troy Balderson that would overturn the Clean Power Plan 2.0. 6/17/2025

This week, former FirstEnergy lobbyist Justin Biltz testified before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, where OMA Energy Group attorney Kim Bojko pressed him for details about the utility’s secret payments and backdoor deals tied to Ohio’s largest bribery scandal.

Bojko questioned Biltz on the millions paid to entities linked to ex-PUCO Chair Sam Randazzo, including a $4.3 million payout before his 2019 appointment. Biltz admitted the payments and meetings with Randazzo shaped House Bill 6 but claimed he did not know if customer rates were used to recoup the money. 6/13/2025

New load growth from artificial intelligence, data centers, advanced manufacturing, and electrification of vehicles and appliances is putting utility load forecasts to the test for their accuracy.

Industrial and consumer groups wrote a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) urging them to be more involved in utility load forecasts. The OMA has been an early and frequent voice calling for more transparency of utility load forecasts.

Last year in Ohio, AEP forecasted their summer peak load in 2035 of approximately 26,000 MW. This year, their 2035 forecast jumped to 40,000 MW, even amidst a moratorium on new data center interconnections. High load forecasts could trigger unnecessary generation and transmission projects whose costs fall on the shoulders of consumers through utility rate increases. 6/11/2025

This week, the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association (OMA) Board of Directors awarded the OMA’s Dan French Legacy Award to leaders of Ohio’s General Assembly for their work on House Bill 15, a landmark energy bill that restores needed balance to Ohio’s utility regulation and repeals key provisions of House Bill 6.

Senate President Rob McColley, House Speaker Matt Huffman, Senate President Pro-Tem Bill Reineke, Senator Brian Chavez, Representative Adam Holmes, and Representative Roy Klopfenstein were awarded the Dan French Legacy Award for their commitment to free markets and competitive generation in House Bill 15.

The Dan French Legacy Award, established to honor Lt. Col. Daniel P. French, recognizes individuals who have demonstrated exemplary service and leadership on behalf of Ohio’s manufacturing community. 6/4/2025

It was all smiles at the OMA’s May Energy Committee last week, as members celebrated a key win for manufacturers in energy policy.

House Bill 15, which was signed by Governor Mike DeWine last week, repealed the subsidies for uneconomical power plants in southern Ohio and Indiana, a repeal of above-market charges, also known as “riders,” and increased utility transparency in the form of energy “heat maps.”

The committee also heard a presentation on rising capacity prices and what manufacturers can do to manage their power bills. Additionally, the committee welcomed special guest State Senator Mark Romanchuk, who emphasized that OMA’s advocacy was critical in the passage of HB 15. 5/22/2025

Ohio’s utility regulatory agency, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), made headlines this week following their advocacy to remove a breakout session at a national conference that was set to be focused on corruption within an agency.

The National Conference of Regulatory Attorneys had planned to hold a breakout session during its annual meeting titled Lessons from Ohio: What should a staff attorney do if you think the chairman may be a crook?, alluding to former PUCO Chairman Sam Randazzo, who had been awaiting federal and state trials on a variety of corruption-related charges.

After receiving pressure from the general counsel of the PUCO to cancel the session, the panel discussion went ahead under a different title focusing on character and ethics. 5/25/2025

OMA’s Energy Engineer, John Seryak of Go Sustainable Energy, provided expert testimony before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), urging the agency to hold FirstEnergy accountable for its role in the House Bill 6 bribery scandal and asking them to require FirstEnergy to credit $769 million back to Ohio customers, given that those funds were illegally obtained. 5/23/25

This week, the OMA provided testimony to the House Energy Committee in opposition to House Bill 142. The bill contains numerous proposed changes to the ratemaking process that would undermine consumer protections and harm the affordability and fairness of energy rates for customers.

The bill would allow gas utilities to project future costs and revenues, which can result in consumers paying higher rates based on speculative estimates rather than actual data. Additionally, it allows utilities to collect money from customers for riders on a projected basis, regardless of whether those funds are actually used. The OMA expressed concern with these provisions, as well as others contained in the pending legislation. 5/21/2025

Weeks after passage of the priority energy reform bill to attract more competitive generation, Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman has turned his attention to Ohio’s grid operator, PJM Interconnection (PJM), which serves 13 states and Washington, D.C.

Huffman expressed frustration with the length of time PJM takes to approve new power plants and has suggested another regional transmission organization, Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), might be a better option for Ohio to consider joining. While the OMA has shared concerns with PJM’s delay of capacity auctions to procure new power generation as well as implementing costly rule changes, the MISO system is composed of more vertically integrated utilities that have monopoly ownership over electric generation as compared to PJM, which may pose challenges to Ohio’s competitive generation market. 5/13/2025

This week, Governor Mike DeWine signed House Bill 15, an extensive energy bill, into law.

House Bill 15, which was passed nearly unanimously across both chambers, contains an immediate repeal of the OVEC subsidies that were the core of the notorious House Bill 6 scandal that ended with then Speaker of the House Larry Householder indicted and sentenced to prison.

The OMA celebrated the signing in a statement, highlighting that the bill will allow Ohio’s energy system to pull ahead and attract new generation, bringing with it, new economic investments.

Other key provisions of House Bill 15 include the repeal of above-market charges, also known as “riders,” that customers are presently forced to pay and increased utility transparency in the form of energy “heat maps.”

In an op-ed published this week, OMA President Ryan Augsburger highlighted this bill as a welcome turning point in Ohio’s energy policy, emphasizing the opportunity Ohio now has to become a national leader in attracting generation and economic investment.

House Bill 15 will become law 90 days after DeWine’s signature. 5/13/2025

Regional grid operator PJM has procured more than enough electric generation capacity to meet peak power needs this summer, plus a healthy reserve margin.

Last year PJM raised its generation reserve margin considerably – from about 15% to about an 18% safety cushion over peak needs – and met it. PJM also increased its load forecast for even more safety margin, discounted generation contributions from coal, solar, gas, nuclear, and wind resources – creating yet even more safety margin – and also is raising regional electric bills by $12 billion per year starting this summer to attract new generation amidst other reforms. However, PJM’s staid description of the expensive cushioning and forthcoming rule changes to increase electric generation, that it has “adequate resources available for summer,” is still receiving hyperbolic treatment in the press, creating impressions of an imminent grid crisis.

The facts: PJM is richly paying electric generators to meet the region’s peak electric needs, even in extreme cases, and with plentiful cushion. The rich payments will hit all Ohio manufacturer electric bills starting this summer. Read more from OMA energy engineering consultants Runnerstone. 5/12/2025

This week, NRG Energy Inc. announced that it will acquire a $12 billion portfolio from LS Power, doubling its generation capacity with 18 natural gas facilities and adding a leading commercial and industrial virtual power plant (C&I VPP) platform, including one in Troy, Ohio.

The deal, expected to close in early 2026, expands NRG’s footprint in the Northeast and Texas and is immediately accretive to earnings. NRG plans to return $9.1 billion to shareholders over five years. The acquisition supports growing energy demand—especially from data centers—and boosts NRG’s credit profile. LS Power retains about 10 GW in generation and transmission assets while gaining an 11% equity stake in NRG. 5/12/2025

This week, appeals court judges upheld the convictions of former House Speaker Larry Householder for his role in the bribery scheme to pass House Bill 6, which included $1 billion for two nuclear plants.

The judges found that there was enough evidence for the jury to conclude that Householder solicited and received millions of dollars from FirstEnergy in return for passing the bailout legislation. Householder will continue to serve his 20-year federal prison sentence. 5/6/2025

PJM opened a one-time process for new generation to skip its long interconnection queue and come online faster, called the Reliability Resource Initiative. The initiative chose 51 shovel-ready projects to be placed in front of the interconnection queue, totaling 11.8 GW of additional generation.

Of the selected projects, 69% are natural gas, 19% are battery energy storage, 12% are nuclear, and 0.1% are coal. 90% of projects are expected to come online by 2030, with the remaining 10% to come online by 2031. Although the application guidance indicated that any resource was eligible to apply, it is clear that there was a heavy bias towards thermal resources. In Ohio, nine projects were approved. All of Ohio’s approved projects are natural gas power plants, seven of them being expansions of already existing plants and two being new natural gas power plants in Lucas and Carroll counties. PJM’s Reliability Resource Initiative is one of several reforms PJM is instituting to interconnect more electricity generation. 5/8/2025