FirstEnergy lost two large power plants during January's arctic-like weather -- the 2,490-megawatt coal-burning Bruce Mansfield plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, and right next door, one of its 900-megawatt nuclear reactors at its Beaver Valley power plant.

And then the company found it could not buy natural gas for its 545-megawatt gas turbine plant in Lorain. The shutdowns and inability to buy gas forced the company to buy power on the regional grid -- just as wholesale market prices soared.

Power purchases during the 10 days of sub-zero January weather knocked down earnings by 13 cents per share, Leila Vespoli, chief legal officer and executive vice president of markets, told financial analysts during a public teleconference Tuesday and now available on the company's website.

She said power purchases over the entire quarter reduced earnings by a total of 23 cents per share.

Then extra charges levied by PJM Interconnection, the manager of the grid in Ohio and 12 other states, nicked another 10 cents per share out of gross profits, she said, though the company is planning on recovering about half of that from commercial and industrial customers.

Higher prices exasperated the earnings impact of our power purchases.

...recovery of costs associated with storm repairs from the 2012 Derecho and Hurricane Sandy, along with operating costs at power stations, including new environmental control equipment. In addition, the rate request includes hiring 50 new company employees to help enhance service reliability.

Currently, the monthly bill for a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours is about $92.62. If the proposed rate increase, including the cost of the new tree trimming program, is granted, the monthly bill would be about $106.79.

Mon Power and Potomac Edison have not filed for an increase in base rates for nearly five years. The companies’ last major rate changes were a decrease in fuel-related rates of 5 percent on Jan. 1, 2013, and a rate reduction of 1.5 percent in October 2013 due to the Harrison acquisition.
Even with the full proposed increase and tree trimming surcharge, Mon Power and Potomac Edison residential rates would be 10 percent lower than the national average residential rates.

To help customers manage their bills, Mon Power and Potomac Edison offer an average payment plan, special payment plans, and access to energy assistance programs.

“The filing will help ensure continued safe and reliable electric generation for our customers,” said Holly Kauffman, president of FirstEnergy’s West Virginia Operations. “On the utility side of our operations, the new employees will include linemen, engineers, supervisors and other personnel to help make the service we provide our customers even better and meet anticipated business growth in our state.”

The National Labor Relations Board has charged Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. and its utility companies with unfair labor practices associated with the closing of two power plants in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Acting on complaints from the Utility Workers Union of America Local 102, which represents 850 FirstEnergy employees across three states, the NLRB is alleging that FirstEnergy refused to talk about job placement, severance and other benefits for workers at Mitchell and Hatfield’s Ferry power plants unless the entire union signed a new contract that included concessions in benefits and other changes. The two coal-fired power plants closed in October.

“They held all them folks hostage to try to get a contract that effected everyone in our bargaining unit unfairly,” said Bob Whalen, president of Local 102.

The project, called the Plains & Eastern Clean Line, won’t break ground until 2016, but the company behind it — Clean Line Energy Partners — announced this month that it would build a $100 million convertor station along the line’s route, somewhere in central Arkansas.

But as initially planned, the project would have had little effect on Arkansans beyond creating some jobs through the construction period. The line traveled from Oklahoma east through Arkansas, but Clean Line’s electricity wouldn’t have stopped in Arkansas along the way.

This was the basis of the Arkansas Public Service Commission’s 2011 denial of Clean Line’s attempt to be recognized as a utility in the state. Becoming a utility would have meant the company could have used eminent domain in creating the route for its new lines.

However, that changed when Skelly announced the convertor station at this month’s Little Rock Sustainability Summit at the Clinton Presidential Library.

A spokesman for the company said the station “was a significant change in the scope of the project” that was “not initially intended” for it, noting that it was expressly requested by the PSC and by landowners.

Clean Line is a private transmission company in Houston. It develops projects that connect renewable generation points between states.

The Plains & Eastern project is one of five Clean Line transmission projects underway in the country, and the only one that passes through Arkansas.

The new line would mean many new customers for the company.

It has been in the works for the past half-decade and will build two lines intended to connect the Midwest’s wind resources to surrounding areas with less potential to generate wind, such as Missouri and southern Indiana. About 7,000 megawatts of power in Oklahoma would become available to surrounding states.

“Because this is an interstate project, it has to go through the federal permitting process,” Skelly said. “We’re in the middle of that [process]. What it basically does is look at a series of routes, and we take all that information which our different stakeholders use to come up with a route.”

A lot of the job, he said, is getting the word out about the job to county officials, state agencies and environmental groups to determine the route of the line.

“Because this is an interstate project, it has to go through the federal permitting process,” Skelly said. “We’re in the middle of that [process]. What it basically does is look at a series of routes, and we take all that information which our different stakeholders use to come up with a route.”

Currently, the U.S. Department of Energy is working with states and local agencies to gather input on the line’s proposed route.

The permitting process overall, Skelly said, is expected to conclude in spring 2015.

“We hope to break ground in a year after that — at some point in 2016,” he said. “This is like any large infrastructure project. It takes a long time to work through the issues and come up with a proper design and take into account the stakeholders’ interests. These things take a long time. As things go, we’re moving at a reasonable pace.”

"Clean" Line is intent upon getting eminent domain authority. That's why their plan has changed to include the central Arkansas converter station. The company wants to force Arkansas landowners and homeowners to allow huge transmission towers on their property. This is a private venture, backed by a few out-of-state billionaires. They refuse to acknowledge that these towers will lower the property value of the landowners and homeowners. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would know that property values will plummet where a 200' steel lattice tower is constructed. So the out-of-state billionaires make huge profits while Arkansas landowners and homeowners lose real estate equity. It can't happen without state or federal eminent domain authority. I think of it like armed robbery, but in this case the robbers don't have to hold the guns. They will have state or federal law enforcement holding the gun to the heads of Arkansas landowners and homeowners.

FirstEnergy Corp.‘s stock had its “sell” rating reiterated by stock analysts at Citigroup Inc. in a report issued on Thursday...

Local 102 represents about 690 of FirstEnergy’s linemen, substation workers, meter readers and technicians in the big electric utility’s Potomac Edison and West Penn Power territories.
About 125 of Local 102’s members work at Potomac Edison service centers in Williamsport; Frederick, Mount Airy and Thurmont, Md.; Martinsburg and Berkeley Springs, W.Va.; and Waynesboro and McConnellsburg, Pa.
Potomac Edison serves about 250,000 Maryland customers in an area stretching from Garrett County east to parts of Montgomery and Carroll counties, and about 132,000 customers in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.
West Penn Power, whose territory includes Pennsylvania’s Franklin and Fulton counties, serves about 720,000 customers.
In March 2013, FirstEnergy began negotiations with Local 102 for a labor contract to replace the three-year pact that was to expire April 30, 2013.
What happened next is in dispute.
The company said the contract expired and the union members have continued working under the terms of the previous contract. The union, on the other hand, said the contract was extended for one year until May 1, 2014 — 10 days from today.

Asked last week whether that means a deadline is looming, FirstEnergy spokesman Toad Meyers said, “We’re not facing a deadline from the company’s standpoint. The plans are to continue to negotiate.”
Meyers, who is the utility’s spokesman for comment on negotiations with Local 102, didn’t mention the talks in Detroit.
He said “at least seven more negotiations” are scheduled with Local 102 leaders before April ends. He said he has “no idea” where those talks are taking place.
Asked Thursday what happens if an agreement isn’t reached by May 1, Whalen said there’s a “variety of things that could happen.
“First of all, we continue to work day by day,” Whalen said. “Or, the union could agree to sign an extension to work under the (last contract’s) terms for ‘x’ number of days.
“Or, depending on what (FirstEnergy is) thinking, they certainly have the ability to lock us out when they want,” the legality of which would “depend on where it’s at in the negotiations,” Whalen said.
“And then, the last thing, if we don’t have an extension, we have the right to strike,” Whalen said.
If a strike or a lockout were to come, Whalen said neither could happen until at least May 1, when the “no-strike, no-lockout provision” expires with what the union said is still the contract.

Tell Uncle Tony to take a cut in pay, put a pair of di electric boots up his a$$ filled with concrete and take a plunge in the Delaware. Italian my a$$ he is a embarrassment to the nationality and the human race. Some would call him "Yellow" not Uncle Tony or possibly numb-nuts. Yell "Mafia" and I bet he pees his pants.

Mon Power is an a$$-hole company. The WV PSC allows them to screw over consumers of electric.

And the company still thinks is has the ability to charge extra fees to its customers, even if they have fixed-rate contracts, based on comments from FirstEnergy Solutions President Donald R. Schneider.
“It was a very difficult winter, particularly for residential customers, and hopefully waiving the surcharge will make it somewhat easier,” he said in a release. “Even though our contracts allow us to pass through surcharges, we have decided we won’t seek reimbursement from residential customers for the added costs.”

Within three years, some Chicago area residents could be saving money on their electric bills, thanks to power generated 500 miles away.

Adding wind energy to the grid should push wholesale electricity prices down, Detweiler said. He thinks Illinois consumers could save about $320 million after the line’s first year.

“Wind is stranded because of a lack of transmission lines,” said David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, which represents the interests of utility customers in Illinois.

The Clean Line, he added, “has the potential to bring in a lot of low-cost power.”

The savings suggested by Detweiler are an estimate, but “there’s no question that it would reduce prices in Illinois,” Kolata said.

The $2 billion Rock Island Clean Line would take 3,500 megawatts of power created by thousands of wind turbines in Iowa and deliver it to Illinois. The project could be completed by 2017.

“As a nation [we] are moving toward renewable energy resources. We need a grid that reflects where those energy sources are found,” said Hans Detweiler, director of development for the project.

Wind-generated electricity could help Illinois meet renewable energy standards. By law, one-fourth of the energy used in Illinois must come from renewable sources by 2025.

And there is demand for renewable energy sources. Some Chicago suburbs seek out green energy through a process called “aggregation,” in which the suburb buys green energy in bulk for the community and passes along the savings, if any.

In Evanston, aggregation saved the average household $264 in its first year, said Jonathan Nieuwsma, vice president of Citizens for Greener Evanston.

Mr. Skelly’s visit comes amid an upsurge in opposition to the project.

Opponents recently have banded together in a bid to thwart Grain Belt Express, with some sessions held in Buchanan and Clinton counties. They contend landowners are being coerced into signing easement agreements.

However, Clean Line believes it is gaining more supporters rather than detractors and say the process in Kansas already has erased doubts.

“We’re having those conversations in Missouri,” Mr. Skelly said. “We’re out there having negotiations with landowners ... We find out that people get more comfortable with it.”

I can tell you how negotiations with landowners in eastern Kansas is going. They're telling Skelly where he can put his power line, to put it mildly. The vast majority of landowners in eastern Kansas have resolved to not even negotiate with Clean Line until they get regulatory approval in Missouri and Illinois. The routing approval handed down by the KCC last fall was contingent upon them gaining regulatory approval in these two states. Why would anyone want to sign an easement agreement with a company that will more than likely sell the easement pre-construction to a foreign interest like National Grid, and not even be around when and if construction ever begins.

Two things that you can say about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, as a market regulator, are:

It produces the most incomprehensible prose of any market regulator, and

Its markets have an unusual tendency to be gamed in embarrassing ways.

I suspect these facts are related. I posit that almost nobody, including at the FERC or its various regional power markets, can actually figure out how those markets' rules work. So they work badly. And while you have to be very smart to figure them out -- say, at the level of Blythe Masters, or electrical engineering Ph.D. Alan Chen -- once you have figured them out, they become comically easy to game. FERC builds markets with so many bells and whistles and buttons and valves that some of the buttons end up having no function but to dispense money. If you can find those buttons, what you do is just keep pressing them until the FERC notices and gets mad at you and starts scolding you incomprehensibly.