It shouldn't come as any surprise.  StopPATH WV and The Power Line have been reporting on this issue since last spring, but here's a new article that wraps it all together.

At a recent DOE "congestion study workshop" utility schmoozers, their PJM and MISO lap dogs, and government officials came together to further their goals of building a whole bunch of unneeded transmission to transport midwest wind to east coast load centers.

“Illinois, Indiana and now northwestern Ohio are seeing a tremendous growth in wind integrations,” said Bob Bradish, head of American Electric Power’s transmission planning group. “A lot of that is now starting to show in the way of congestion on our system out there.”

AEP could also build transmission and pay for it itself, he noted. But the nature of eastern demand is such that a congestion issue identified and addressed in the western part of the PJM system, for example, will lead to other points of congestion.

“East economics are so that they want to pull everything from the west; you fix something, they just pull more, so congestion comes back up again,” Bradish said.

Why should you be worried?  Because it's the same stupid plan as Project Mountaineer -- west to east power flows that require new, expensive, destructive transmission lines, now cloaked in the "green" of wind.  Of course, all those lines "for wind" will also be tied to the existing grid connected to AEP's (and other dirty generators') coal-fired plants.  And as PATH taught us, you can't separate "clean" from "dirty" electrons. By the time that "wind" lights up a flat-screen TV in Annapolis, it's going to be the same old "coal" that's been doing it for years, however the consumer is now being fooled into believing they're using renewable power.

If you live around PATH's proposed "Kemptown" substation site and have been wondering why they persist in dragging the zoning issues through the courts, this is why.  The property is attractive as a target for other "wind" transmission projects.

So, keep an eye on how DOE's congestion study plays out and the progress of off-shore wind, which will turn the west to east flow paradigm completely around and will end up being the cheapest and most efficient solution.

Remember those rumors about AEP merging with Entergy that were floated around the press earlier this year?  Well, that's not going to happen now.

Entergy made a deal last week with ITC Holdings Corp. in which it will divest itself of its transmission assets.

All those snapping, buzzing, money-making transmission lines and AEP didn't get a single one.  Big frowny face for AEP :-( !!!

So, who's left on AEP's merger shopping list now? 

How about Dominion merging with AEP so that AEP's next transmission project in Virginia won't get back-stabbed by Dominion and end up on the cutting room floor at PJM?  Sneaky, back-stabbing birds-of-a-feather are often very happy together...

FirstEnergy made the Top Ten!

The top ten POWER PLANT TOXIC AIR POLLUTERS LIST, that is.

FirstEnergy's Bruce Mansfield Power Plant (the one that created the Little Blue Run Poison Pond -- now more poisonous than ever!) came in at Number 9 on The Environmental Integrity Project's AMERICA’S TOP POWER PLANT TOXIC AIR POLLUTERS report for 2011 for emissions of Arsenic, Chromium, Lead, and Mercury.

Congratulations, FirstEnergy.

P.S.  Three-eyed fish and asthmatic kids think you suck.

This story illustrates a great example of how investor owned utilities use socialized cost recovery to make themselves a bundle of money at your expense.  In the example, the Virginia SCC allowed an AEP subsidiary to recover up to 50% of the cost of their charitable contributions from captive ratepayers.  The amount approved for recovery by the SCC was $250,000.  A spokesman for the company said that it equated to "two pennies on a $100 bill," and that any other company would roll the cost of their charitable contributions into the cost of their product.

Two pennies?  No big deal to you personally, right?  Maybe, but to the investor owned utility on the receiving end of those two pennies it's a very big deal.  Every utility customer needs to take a fresh look at those two pennies.  Your "two pennies" are added to the "two pennies" of millions of other individual ratepayers until they form one gigantic pile of pennies.  That gigantic pile of pennies is what Uncle Scrooge McDuck, the CEO of the investor owned utility, swims around in daily.

That's exactly the point I made to a reporter last year while doing publicity on the Formal Challenge filed with FERC.  Dividing the amount challenged by the 51 million ratepayers in the PJM region who paid it only amounted to roughly a nickel per ratepayer.  However, on the receiving end, the PATH Companies ended up with a roomful of 51 million nickels.  Go ahead, try to imagine what that would look like, and instead of Uncle Scrooge McDuck diving in, you've got a couple of ultra-rich investor owned utility CEOs quacking and swimming around in their ill-gotten gain.

It's also the same point the Maryland Office of People's Counsel made in their recent comments on FERC Docket No. ER12-269.  The amount that the PATH Companies are wrongly recovering from ratepayers is not great enough for any single entity to spend the time and money to hire consultants to examine PATH's annual formula rate filings to find the errors, therefore no one is examining them and the PATH Companies are free to get away with recovering all sorts of costs they are not entitled to.

As far as the utility's other argument, which is that every other corporation rolls the cost of their charitable contributions into the ultimate cost of their product, there is a distinction that argument fails to make.  Any other corporation is subject to the whims of competition when pricing their product.  If they make too many charitable contributions that they must roll into the cost of their product, and it raises the ultimate cost of their product higher than the cost of a competitor's product, then the consumers will buy the competitor's product and the corporation who makes too many charitable contributions will lose market share and revenue.  This is part of the system of checks and balances that powers the engines of capitalism and is known as cost accounting.  In the case of a regulated utility, however, the corporation's customers are captive, which means that they MUST buy their product from a certain corporation, no matter how much it costs.  This is the argument Commissioner Christie made in his dissent.

If AEP really wants to "roll charitable contributions into the cost of their product," they ought to roll those contributions into their cost of generation... and then give freely.  Since the cheapest generation is dispatched first we'd all breathe a little easier.

So, when "The AEP Foundation" makes those wonderful, charitable contributions, do they take all the credit for the charity?  Of course they do!  And when tax time rolls around, do they take the deduction for the charitable contribution?  Of course they do!  Who really paid for the charitable contribution?  You did!

That $250,000 that Appalachian Power recovered from Virginia ratepayers is just another dump truck full of nickels and dimes to pour into the ol' corporate money bin.  Since the AEP Foundation would have made the contribution anyhow, the amount they are permitted to recover from ratepayers is 100% pure profit.

The investor owned utilities have the act of pulling the wool over your individual ratepayer eyes down to a science, and it's working, as long as you think about it as "just two pennies."

But, take a minute to think about the big picture.

... and checking it twice.  Gonna find out who's... ut-oh, AEP, you've been naughty this year!

I take back my snarky comments about this reporter after his silly "evil twin" story about new AEP CEO Little Drummer Boy. Dan Gearino of The Columbus Dispatch actually did some investigative journalism about AEP's sneaky rate hike deal with Ohio's Public Utilities Commission.  The deal could raise electric rates for small businesses by more than 30%, while lowering rates for big, industrial energy hogs.  Check out the results of the reporter's investigation here.

AEP is going to raise the electric rates of Kentucky Power customers 31% to installer scrubbers on their Big Sandy plant so that it can continue to burn lots of MTR coal far into the future instead of switching fuel sources.  Keep in mind that the power companies always ask for more than double the rate increase they actually need because they know the state utilities commission is going to hack it up until it resembles something just and reasonable.  Could AEP be padding the cost of this upgrade to support Mikey's EPA "train wreck" fantasy?  I hope the Kentucky utilities commission checks AEP's claim that installing the scrubber is truly the least cost option over the long term instead of switching fuels, or other options.

If you're an Appalachian Power customer in Virginia, you can now start giving those Santa suit clad bell ringers the hand on your way into Wal-Mart because the Virginia SCC has now made AEP your charitable contributions coordinator.  In a split decision, the SCC has allowed Appalachian Power to recover the cost of their charitable contributions from their customers.  Dissenting Commissioner Mark Christie gets it right when he says recovery of charitable contributions have no place in a monopoly franchise.  The company can deduct these contributions from their taxes, but they'd much rather recover them from their customers and take credit for the "charity."  Outrageous!


And last, but not least, check out this episode of The Keystone Cops that ensued when Appalachian Power held a storm response drill in West Virginia.  APCO would do better to just spend some of that money they received in rate increases to repair and maintain their crumbling distribution system instead of playing storm games.  Be sure to check out the comments -- hysterical -- AEP will next practice filing for more rate increases!  :-)

Ho Ho Flippin' Ho, AEP!

Today, Maryland's Office of People's Counsel filed their comments in PATH's Section 205 filing to change the definition of "interested party" at FERC.

Here's a quote:

"What seemingly prompted the instant filing is that PATH was piqued at the temerity of some individuals who (in related cases) filed a formal -- and at least partially valid - challenge to PATH’s annual rate update in compliance with the governing rules and procedures."

(They are referring to PATH's admission to FERC that errors were found by "interested parties" during discovery last year and subsequently corrected by PATH in a revised filing with FERC before the Formal Challenge was filed.  These admitted errors are in addition to the $3.4M Formal Challenge.  OPC didn't have the temerity to assume whether the Challenge is valid or not -- that's FERC's job.)

You can download and read OPC's comments here.