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FirstEnergy Ohio Utilities Withdraw Current Default Service Plan
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Citing a recent Ohio Supreme Court decision concerning the PUC of Ohio's rehearing authority, the FirstEnergy Ohio utilities have filed to withdraw their electric security plan (ESP V), which governs default service and other matters, that had been approved by PUCO in May 2024 (Case No. 23-301-EL-SSO)
The FirstEnergy Ohio EDCs had sought rehearing of certain aspects of PUCO's order which modified the ESP as-filed by the EDCs. Under Ohio law, PUCO must act on rehearing requests within 30 days. As has been customary, PUCO granted rehearing in the ESP V case for the limited purpose of providing additional time to consider the rehearing requests. The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled that PUCO lacks authority to grant such limited rehearing for the purpose of extending the time under which PUCO may substantively address a rehearing request.
Furthermore, PUCO has applied the Ohio Supreme Court's order to all pending rehearing requests (not only on a prospective basis), with PUCO, en masse, issuing orders in various proceedings providing that, since PUCO was not authorized to essentially toll its deadline for ruling on rehearing, the rehearing requests were denied by operation of law for those requests which had been pending for more than 30 days.
Additionally, there has been debate among stakeholders as to aggrieved parties' ability to still seek Ohio Supreme Court review of a PUCO order affected by the en masse rehearing denials. Because of deadlines to seek an Ohio Supreme Court review of a PUCO order, some stakeholders have expressed concern that, due to the passage of time under PUCO's limited grant of rehearing for further consideration, deeming a rehearing denial as being effective 30 days after the rehearing request was filed, regardless of whether PUCO granted limited rehearing for further consideration, could mean that parties have missed the deadline to seek court review of PUCO's order. PUCO has said that it is not empowered to address whether any petitions for an Ohio Supreme Court review are timely, as PUCO has said that the Ohio Supreme Court alone addresses such matter
On rehearing, the FirstEnergy Ohio EDCs had, among other things, sought to reduce the term of ESP V to three years (versus the five years adopted by PUCO, and the eight years originally proposed by the EDCs). Apart from the ESP term length, the FirstEnergy Ohio utilities had generally not sought rehearing of any aspect of the ESP related to default service procurement and pricing, or otherwise related to the retail market
Exercising their statutory rights under ESPs, which allow a utility to withdraw an ESP if such ESP has been modified by PUCO, the FirstEnergy Ohio utilities withdrew ESP V, since PUCO may no longer consider the EDCs' prior rehearing request, and the rehearing has been denied by operation of law.
The FirstEnergy Ohio utilities sought an order from PUCO continuing the terms of the ESP (ESP IV) which was in place prior to ESP V's June 1, 2024 start date, and sought certain modifications to ESP IV in order to implement certain provisions adopted under ESP V, including ESP V's provisions related to the Standard Service Offer
Specifically, the FirstEnergy Ohio EDCs sought to continue, until modified under a new ESP, the default service procurement design adopted under ESP V, including the PUCO-approved SSO product mix and procurement schedule
In particular, ESP V eliminated the use of 36-month contracts for default service supply, and the FirstEnergy Ohio EDCs sought to adopt this provision, and to rely solely on 12-month and 24-month SSO contracts, in otherwise reverting to ESP IV
Furthermore, ESP V included the use of a capacity proxy price for default service auctions in which a PJM base residual auction capacity price is not known, and the FirstEnergy Ohio EDCs propose to maintain this use of the capacity proxy price
The FirstEnergy Ohio utilities also propose to rely on the bidding documents and bidder collateral requirements adopted under ESP V
In other matters, as part of implementing a return to ESP IV, the FirstEnergy Ohio utilities propose to continue the "modest" expansion of the Rider NMB Pilot Program that had been approved in ESP V.
Under this expansion, the EDCs will make available, for new customers under the Rider NMB pilot, an additional 100 MW of space, on a first-come, first-served basis, with each individual new customer capped at 20 MW.
In seeking to modify ESP IV to reflect certain changes adopted in ESP V, the FirstEnergy Ohio EDCs did not seek approval for, or otherwise explicitly address, PUCO's order under ESP V that the EDCs shall develop a smart thermostat rebate program, open to retail suppliers, with a $2 million annual budget. As previously reported, this direction from PUCO in ESP V was separate from another proposed smart thermostat rebate program, to be open to retail suppliers, which is pending under the FirstEnergy EDCs' Grid Mod II plan, which is a separate proceeding [22-0704-EL-UNC], though PUCO had previously noted that nothing would prevent the combination of the programs subject to each's applicable budget set by PUCO
See more background on ESP V here
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October 29, 2024
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Copyright 2024 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com
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