FirstEnergy’s Ohio electric companies, Ohio Edison, The Illuminating Company, and Toledo Edison have filed a request with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) to review their base electric rates.
The rate request includes recovery of investments to strengthen the distribution system, improve the customer experience and establish a customer assistance program to assist residential customers qualifying as income-eligible for financial assistance. The proposed change in annual revenue is approximately $93.6 million as compared to current rates.
FirstEnergy's Ohio electric companies have invested heavily to modernize and strengthen the electric grid through initiatives like the four-year, $516 million Grid Modernization Plan, approved by the PUCO in 2019. The investments, which help reduce the size and length of power outages, include the installation of automated devices and technology to locate an outage and automatically transfer customers to an adjacent power line to limit the number of customers experiencing a long outage.
The rate filing includes:
· Recovery of investments the companies have made to help create a more reliable and resilient distribution system, including the installation of additional animal guards and lightning protection on electrical equipment to help prevent outages caused by factors outside of the companies' control.
· Creation of an Energy Assistance Outreach Team to enhance the companies' ongoing efforts to increase awareness, education and participation in energy assistance programs available to eligible customers. Approximately 34% of FirstEnergy's Ohio residential customers are income-eligible for financial assistance.
· A plan to transition company-owned streetlights to energy-efficient LED streetlights.
A typical non-shopping FirstEnergy Ohio utility residential customer using 750 kWh of electricity per month on average is expected to see an increase of $1.88, or 1.5%, on their monthly bill, upon receiving approval by the PUCO. As part of the rate review process, a supplemental filing will be made at the end of July, which among other things, will incorporate impacts from the PUCO's recent decision in the ESP V case.
