By John Stang
The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio this week approved a settlement that requires three FirstEnergy Corp. utilities to refund $306 million to its ratepayers.
The settlement is between the Ohio Consumer Counsel’s office and FirstEnergy on the Significantly Excessive Earnings Tests (SEET), in which FirstEnergy’s utilities received PUCO’s permission to collect higher-than-expected revenues from its customers. FirstEnergy received that permission in 2017, 2018, and 2019, according to PUCO’s approval document filed on its website Wednesday.
The settlement was prompted by a December 2020 Ohio Supreme Court decisions that ruled FirstEnergy companies could not exclude revenue from a customer charge for electric grid modernization in its SEET calculations.
The settlement calls for FirstEnergy’s three Ohio utilities — Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, Ohio Edison and Toledo Edison — to refund $96 million for the excessive charges made from 2017 to 2019, with $51 million of that going to residential customers and the rest going to businesses. This will be in the form of reductions in future electric bills to customers.
The agreement also calls for reductions in customer bills of $80 million in 2022, $60 million in 2023, $45 million in 2024, and $25 million in 2025.
This settlement comes after FirstEnergy agreed in July to pay a $230 million fine to the feds and state for its role in a major bribery scandal involving two Ohio reactors and the now-ousted former Ohio House speaker.
