Energy

Last week, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) upheld its decision to allow discriminatory pricing treatment of energy-intensive customers via the creation of a data center-specific tariff. The OMA Energy Group had opposed this tariff, arguing that it creates a precedent that could punish industrial and other high-energy users, such as manufacturers, in the future.

Of particular concern, the decision lacks evidentiary support, as the rationale for the tariff is based upon overstated speculative load forecasts by AEP.

The OMA Energy Group will be appealing this decision to the Ohio Supreme Court. 9/10/2025

Township trustees in Jerome Township, northwest of Columbus, recently voted unanimously to place a moratorium on the “receipt, processing, issuance or approval of any application for a zoning certificate” for data centers. The moratorium is believed to be one of the first in Ohio, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Vilification of data centers is increasing. In the last month, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) approved a utility proposal enabling discrimination against the cutting-edge businesses by imposing unreasonable additional charges and commitments on data center businesses.

The purported evidence of data center utility usage or constraints on the grid do not substantiate the enmity directed at data centers. Subject matter experts will dig into this topic at the upcoming Ohio Manufacturers’ Energy Conference. 9/10/2025

Energy giant American Electric Power (AEP) has signaled it may exit its downtown Columbus corporate headquarters. While AEP statements suggest the company could reinvest in the AEP tower or look elsewhere in central Ohio, sources say corporate leaders are shopping Ohio’s elected leaders for an “economic development” package.

AEP’s investor PowerPoint shows on slide 12 how regulated earnings from Ohio and their regulated transmission company are among the corporation’s best-performing assets. 9/3/2025

A new bill was recently introduced in the Ohio House that would give utilities the ability to create voluntary demand response programs for residential and small commercial customers. Large commercial and industrial customers already have access to voluntary demand response programs through competitive business providers.

Demand response is an eligible capacity resource in the PJM capacity auction and can have the effect of lowering the price of electric capacity. However, it is not common for residential and small business customers to enroll with competitive demand response providers, and this resource remains underutilized. The proposed bill would allow utilities to create incentivized programs that would allow small energy users to sign up to agree to reduce their energy usage during high demand hours on the network.

Although this new bill has been cited in the news recently, it has a long way to go before becoming law. The bill has not yet passed the Ohio House or Senate and will have to gain support in both chambers to ultimately pass. If the bill passes, utilities will then need to develop the program for their network area and seek approval from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio before rolling it out to customers. 9/11/2025

Less than one week remains to register for Ohio’s premier energy event for manufacturers—register today to secure your spot. Attendees will hear from manufacturers, legislators and energy leaders on a wide variety of topics spanning from reliability, efficiency, on-site generation, transmission costs, regulatory updates and much more.

Seats are limited—don’t miss your chance to be part of this event! 9/4/2025

An influential state senator recently penned an editorial making the case for state policies to spur construction of small modular nuclear power plants. Senator Jerry Cirino (R, Lake County) calls for undefined “action” to attract new nuclear power plants.

OMA’s energy engineers at RunnerStone LLC have been following the development of small modular reactors (SMRs) for years, and while they are talked about frequently today, they have not demonstrated economic viability yet and could potentially hamstring customers and/or taxpayers with significant unnecessary costs.

The last time Ohio lawmakers acted to subsidize nuclear power plants, it ended in the House Bill 6 criminal scandal. Attend the Ohio Manufacturers’ Energy Conference later this month to find out the rest of the story. Registration closes soon. 9/3/2025

The Ohio Department of Development (ODOD) announced that $8.5 million in grants is now available to support energy efficiency projects for businesses throughout Ohio. Applications for the latest round of the Advanced Energy Fund will be accepted from Sept. 2 through Oct. 31. The application and guidance documents are available on the Advanced Energy Fund Grant website.

Learn more about this and other ODOD programs to support businesses in Ohio from Shaun Sagle, the department’s deputy chief of the Office of Energy and Environment, at the Ohio Manufacturers’ Energy Conference on Sept. 18. View the full agenda and register today. 9/3/2025

In a win for customers, the Supreme Court of Ohio recently decided that the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) improperly offset future grid modernization investments when analyzing AES Ohio’s significantly excessive earnings test (SEET) for 2018 and 2019 instead of refunding the approximate $61.1 million in excessive earnings to the utility’s customers.

The Court directed the PUCO to conduct a new SEET analysis and order refunds accordingly. 8/27/2025

Last week, the OMA Energy Group initiated the appeals process at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), requesting their reconsideration of an unwise decision allowing for discriminatory ratemaking.

AEP Ohio, a regulated utility required to serve all customers fairly, imposed an unapproved moratorium on new data center developments and proposed a new rate class targeting energy-intensive customers like data centers, which was ultimately approved by the PUCO. The OMA Energy Group opposed this move, arguing that it sets a discriminatory precedent that could harm manufacturers in the future and disrupt Ohio’s competitive energy market. Especially of concern, the PUCO’s rationale for the special tariff is deeply flawed, based on overstated speculative load forecasts by AEP.

The OMA continues to advocate for market-based solutions grounded in competitive markets without unfairly targeting specific industries. Register for the Ohio Manufacturers’ Energy Conference on September 18 to learn more about the data center tariff. 8/12/2025

PJM this week introduced and is seeking feedback on a preliminary proposal based on increased load forecasts.

The special arrangement, called non-capacity baked load, would be triggered only if generator supply is short of the reserve requirement for the capacity auction. In that case, PJM will ask for volunteers among new large loads over 50 MW to be curtailable, that is, the first thing curtailed on the network, even before demand response. In return, the large load would not have to pay for capacity. If PJM can’t get enough volunteers, it will require a portion of new large loads to be curtailable. It is unclear if this proposal will be able to meet PJM’s intent: speed up the interconnection of large loads and significantly reduce capacity prices. It is also not clear that PJM’s proposal addresses critiques from a coalition of manufacturers and consumer groups that utility load forecasts could be overestimated, are uncertain, and lack transparency. 8/20/2025

Early bird registration for the 2025 Ohio Manufacturers’ Energy Conference ends today! The conference will be held on Thursday, September 18, at the Quest Conference Center in Westerville, OH. Register today to secure the Member Early Bird price of $125.

The conference will feature sessions covering retail choice and the future of utility oversight, how to manage rising electricity costs, updates on Ohio energy policy, and the facts on Ohio’s electric transmission system. Register today! 8/12/2025

The legislature’s comprehensive energy reform bill, House Bill 15, became effective on Thursday this week. The OMA-supported legislation included the repeal of subsidies for uneconomical power plants in southern Ohio and Indiana, a repeal of above-market charges, also known as “riders,” on customers’ power bills, and increased utility transparency in the form of energy “heat maps” that utilities will be required to publish.

Learn more about House Bill 15 and how it harnesses the power of competitive markets to attract generation at the Ohio Manufacturers’ Energy Conference on September 18. Register today! 8/12/2025

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) recently approved AEP Ohio’s request to create a special Data Center Tariff, over manufacturers’ objections.

AEP and the PUCO claimed minimum demand provisions in the tariff were needed to protect other customers from cost shifts, yet provided no analysis to back their claims and rejected expert testimony to the contrary. OMA’s expert witness testified that AEP’s tariff could do the opposite, saying it could “create several billion dollars in new costs to customers.”

In a recent earnings call, AEP explained the minimum demand provisions of its tariffs are driving up revenues: “Higher peak demand, coupled with the contractual minimums built into the latest tariff provisions, predominantly in Indiana, are driving up revenues.” 8/12/2025

Recently, Aspire Energy Express LLC announced that it had entered into a natural gas transportation agreement with an AEP subsidiary, AEP Development Services LLC, for Aspire Energy Express to construct and operate a natural gas pipeline in central Ohio to help AEP Ohio power two data centers.

On July 21st, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio staff issued a report recommending that the Commission approve the arrangement. It is not clear that AEP Development Services qualifies as a public utility and is able to enter into this agreement under Ohio law.

Additionally, the arrangement raises concerns about the separation of corporate power infrastructure services, which will be necessary for supplying large loads, such as data centers. 8/5/2025

One of the key OMA-supported provisions included in House Bill 15, passed by the Ohio General Assembly earlier this year, is the repeal of subsidies that Ohioans have been forced to pay to utility ownership of two uncompetitive and uneconomic OVEC power plants. In all, Ohio ratepayers subsidized more than $683 million dollars in losses for OVEC’s operations.

The OMA’s energy engineering consultant, RunnerStone LLC, has calculated that the elimination of the rider is estimated to save Ohioans over $400 million through 2030.

Register today for the Ohio Manufacturers’ Energy Conference held on September 18 to learn more about the impact of House Bill 15, among many other topics. 8/5/2025

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to revisit the racketeering conviction of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, rejecting requests for a review from the full slate of judges. The appeals court panel determined that the issues raised in Householder’s petition were fully considered in his original request.

A three-judge panel previously upheld their conviction of Householder for his participation in a pay-to-play scheme that traded political contributions from FirstEnergy for the bailout of two nuclear plants. 7/28/2025

Reuters this week reported on the fading boom for U.S. clean energy, attributing the dip to “a U-turn” in policy positions by the Trump administration. The article quotes research firm Wood Mackenzie, which forecasts solar and wind installations could be 17% and 20% lower than previously forecast.

Another research firm, Rhodium, said the Trump policies put at risk $263 billion of wind, solar, and storage facilities. “The Trump administration has defended its moves to end support for clean energy by arguing the rapid adoption of solar and wind power has created instability in the grid and raised consumer prices – assertions that are contested by the industry and which do not bear out in renewables-heavy power grids, like Texas ERCOT.”

Plan to attend the OMA Manufacturers’ Energy Conference on Sept 18 to gain insights into these and other important energy topics.7/30/2025

On July 22nd, PJM published the results of the latest capacity auction for the 2026/27 delivery year, resulting in a historically high price of $329.17/MW-day, a substantial increase from the 2025/26 auction of $269.92/MW-day, and hitting the maximum of a newly established cap. The cap will remain in place for the next auction before expiring. The auction will cost customers in PJM a total of $16.1B in the 2026/27 delivery year, up from $2.2B in the 2024/25 delivery year.

In a letter to grid operator PJM Interconnection’s leadership last week, the OMA expressed concern that poor oversight and a lack of transparency at PJM are driving up electricity costs for Ohio customers without improving reliability. Given the recent auction results, capacity charges paid for by customers will now total nearly $31 billion over the next two years—more than the previous 6 years combined. Yet, the interconnection backlog and capacity auction delays by PJM persist.

The OMA released a statement following the results of the auction urging PJM to implement faster connection of generation, resume regular three-year auctions, and utilize transparent load forecasting. 7/23/2025

This week, reporting from Cleveland.com’s Jeremy Pelzer found that years after the House Bill 6 scandal, Ohio’s Public Utilities Commission (PUCO) continues to face scrutiny over claims it pressures outside auditors to soften reports critical of utilities. Testimony and documents show PUCO staff have urged auditors to dilute or delete findings regarding companies such as FirstEnergy, AEP Ohio, and Duke Energy, often before reports are made public.

Allegations echo issues tied to former PUCO chair Sam Randazzo, accused of taking millions in bribes from FirstEnergy before his death in 2023.

Audits in question involve hundreds of millions in customer charges, from grid modernization fees to subsidies for aging coal plants. 7/21/2025

Early bird registration is open for the 2025 Ohio Manufacturers’ Energy Conference! The conference will be held on Thursday, September 18, at the Quest Conference Center in Westerville, OH. Register today to secure the Member Early Bird price of $125.

The conference will feature sessions covering retail choice and the future of utility oversight, how to manage rising electricity costs, updates on Ohio energy policy, and the facts on Ohio’s electric transmission system. Register today! 7/15/2025