Update: On December 22, 2014, FirstEnergy and a number of other intervenors, including Ohio Energy Group (OEG), AEP Ohio, the City of Akron, the Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE), the Cleveland Housing Network (CHN), the Consumer Protection Association (CPA), the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland (CEOGC), the Citizens Coalition, Nucor Steel Marion (Nucor), Material Sciences Corporation (MSC), the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio (AICUO), and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 245 filed a stipulation with the Commission purporting to resolve all of the issues in the ESP case. The main terms and conditions of the stipulation, which the Commission will consider along with FirstEnergy’s original application, are as follows:
(1) Rider ELR will continue through the end of the ESP IV term, or May 31, 2019, with certain modifications, including the removal of the economic buy-through option event from the rider; the extension of availability of the rider for shopping and non-shopping customers alike; the availability of up to 75,000 kW of additional curtailable load on a first-come, first-serve basis; clarification that ELR customers may opt out of the opportunity and ability to obtain direct benefits from FirstEnergy’s energy efficiency and peak demand reduction (EE/PDR) plans as provided in S.B. 310; and the recovery of ELR credits from customers, with half being recovered through FirstEnergy’s EE/PDR rider (Rider DSE) and half being recovered through FirstEnergy’s economic development rider (Rider EDR);
(2) The automaker charge/credit provision will continue during the ESP IV, with all kWh exceeding baseline usage receiving a credit of $0.01 per kWh, recoverable through Rider EDR;
(3) The charges associated with the General Service—Transmission Provision (Rate GT) will be modified such that the charge for June 1, 2016 through May 31, 2017 will be $8.00 per KVA of billing demand, with the amount decreasing by $2.00 per kVA of billing demand for each year of the ESP, and all dollars collected will be returned to Rate GT customers via the EDR(d) credit;
(4) Material Science’s Rate GT charge will be $4.00 per kVA of billing demand during the term of the ESP;
(5) Rider GCR will be modified to shift to recovery on a non-bypassable basis only if the balance of the rider exceeds 10% of the projected generation expense in two consecutive quarters;
(6) Cost recovery through Rider DRR will be allocated to rate schedules based on a percentage of base distribution charges, and will be recovered on a kWh basis within the rate schedules;
(7) The Rider RRS rate for GS, GP, GSU, and GT customers will be based on billing demand, and for residential and lighting schedules, will b a kWh charge; the time-of-day option under Rider GEN will continue during the ESP;
(8) The City of Akron will be awarded a total of $300,000 over the course of the ESP for energy efficiency-related goals and programs, with such amount being recovered through Rider DSE;
(9) COSE will be awarded $240,000 for energy efficiency-related goals and programs, and up to $1,000,000 in administrator compensation during the term of the ESP, with such amounts being recoverable through Rider DSE;
(10) AICUO will be awarded $200,000 for energy efficiency-related goals and programs, and up to $1,000,000 in administrator compensation during the term of the ESP, with such amounts being recoverable through Rider DSE;
(11) FirstEnergy’s proposed programs (with the City of Akron, COSE, and AICUO) promoting EE/PDR will be included in FirstEnergy’s amended portfolio plan;
(12) CHN, CPA, and CEOGC will each receive $463,333 annually over the term of the ESP in order to assist low-income customers in the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI) service territory in paying their electric bills; and
(13) The Citizens Coalition will receive $3,000,000 over the course of the ESP, to be allocated among CHN, CPA, and CEOGC, for use in establishing a Customer Advisory Agency promoting fuel fund program funding or energy efficiency in the CEI territory.
On the same day that the parties listed above filed the stipulation, numerous other parties, including OMA Energy Group, filed testimony in the case on FirstEnergy’s application. Among other things, OMA Energy Group’s testimony focused on the negative implications of the Commission approving Rider RRS, which would subject customers to costs associated with a power purchase agreement between FirstEnergy and its generation affiliate, FirstEnergy Solutions (FES), covering power generated at FES’s Davis-Besse nuclear generating facility, its W.H. Sammis coal plant, and FES’s entitlement to the output of the OVEC facilities, which are also coal generating facilities.
Due to the filing of the stipulation, the parties are going to be provided additional time for discovery related to the stipulation, and the currently-approved procedural schedule for the evidentiary hearing will be revised. Depositions of two key FirstEnergy witnesses took place this week, with more to follow in the upcoming weeks.
