Update: The hearing ended this week with FirstEnergy offering witness testimony to support both its proposal to set the credit support rider at $558 million annually and its request to charge customers up to $568 million annually for maintaining the corporate headquarters of FirstEnergy Corp. and nexus of operations in Ohio. FirstEnergy’s witness stated that while it intends to spend the revenues received on grid modernization, there is no guarantee to invest in grid modernization and nothing precludes FirstEnergy from sending the revenues in dividends up to its parent company. FirstEnergy is requesting to recover these costs from customers over the next eight years, which could amount to roughly $9 billion in the aggregate.

The next step in the process is for parties to file briefs for the PUCO’s consideration. Briefing concludes at the end of August and a PUCO decision is expected in September or October.