Energy Management

AG Yost Seeks to Block HB 6 Decoupling Charges

Consistent with the OMA’s objections raised in 2019 and 2020, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost this week took legal action to freeze another key provision of House Bill 6. Gongwer News Service (subscription) reports that Yost asked a Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge to block HB 6’s decoupling mechanism, calling it “perverse” and “designed to allow FirstEnergy to overcharge its customers.”

The decoupling provision was one of many reasons the OMA opposed HB 6 during its consideration in 2019. The law’s language assures FirstEnergy utilities will be made whole to revenue levels of 2018 — a peak year for the utility. “This guarantees FirstEnergy will receive its high-water-mark profits regardless of service levels, providing no accountability,” Yost said.

In its comments supporting Yost’s actions this week, the Office of Ohio Consumers’ Counsel said that “two million consumers will be paying FirstEnergy about $310,722 per day in 2021, compared to about $51,259 per day in 2020. In other words, every day the legislature delays repealing HB 6, FirstEnergy gets another $310,722 from consumers. What a deal!” 1/13/2021

EIA Expects Higher Natural Gas Prices

In its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts that the annual natural gas spot price at the Henry Hub will rise 0.98¢ per million British thermal units (MMBtu) to average $3.01/MMBtu in 2021. The agency notes that natural gas hit its lowest average price in decades last year, but production has fallen amid those low prices. 1/13/2021

PUCO, Supreme Court Act to Address HB 6 Concerns

Last week, regulators at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) announced a new audit of FirstEnergy. This was done in response to the criminal and civil cases tied to the state’s nuclear subsidy law (House Bill 6). The PUCO granted a request by the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel to reopen a case tied to FirstEnergy utilities’ distribution modernization rider and to launch an independent third-party audit to ensure revenue from ratepayers was not improperly used to support HB 6.

The PUCO’s action came just days after the Supreme Court of Ohio postponed the collection of $170 million in fees authorized by HB 6 — a direct result of the legal challenge mounted by the OMA Energy Group. The stay provides another backstop of protection for consumers who, on Jan. 1, were supposed to start paying the subsidies authorized by HB 6. 1/4/2021