On Feb. 1, Attorney General Dave Yost announced a “long-term settlement” with FirstEnergy, which has agreed to stop using a House Bill 6-authorized decoupling rider that would cost customers an extra $102 million this year. In a radio interview this week, Yost said FirstEnergy would ask the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) to zero out the decoupling rider. Shortly after, the PUCO announced that the decoupling rates for FirstEnergy’s Ohio distribution utilities had indeed been set to zero. (This tracker shows FirstEnergy has already collected $27 million from the rider over the past year.) This week’s legal development comes after the OMA for nearly two years led efforts to oppose HB 6 — including its decoupling mechanism, which had guaranteed FirstEnergy and its subsidiary, Energy Harbor, profits of at least $978 million in gross annual revenues. It’s also the second recent HB 6-related setback for FirstEnergy. In late December, a Franklin County judge ordered that $170 million per year in HB 6’s customer-funded subsidies could not be collected from customer bills. The OMA helped lead legal efforts to stop the collection of the new subsidies. 2/1/2021
AG Yost Announces Decoupling Deal With FirstEnergy
02/05/2021