FirstEnergy is preparing to enable its largest customers to opt out of its state-mandated programs assisting them with energy efficiency projects.
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View full sizeFirstEnergy Corp. is preparing to amend its energy efficiency programs to allow large customers to opt out. The change is possible under the state's two-year freeze on efficiency and renewable energy.AKRON, Ohio -- FirstEnergy Corp. is poised to amend its energy efficiency programs to allow large customers to opt out of them.
The amendment would probably not affect consumers, but it is the first of a series of changes expected to weaken the state's energy efficiency standards.
"I think you will be seeing something coming out of the company fairly soon," William Ridmann, FirstEnergy's vice president for rates and regulatory affairs, told a group of business and industrial customers Tuesday attending the ninth-annual Energy Management Conference sponsored by the Manufacturers' Education Council and a coalition of other business groups.
Ridmann declined to give details, explaining that "the plan will speak for itself."
"We have studied this and we are moving along in terms of doing what is best for our customers," he said.
FirstEnergy's long campaign to convince lawmakers to change the state's five-year-old laws requiring utilities to help customers use less electricity and forcing utilities to buy more electricity from wind farms and solar arrays included the argument that efficiency programs would cost customers too much money.
The company's move to allow large customers to pull out of efficiency programs comes as Ohio lawmakers prepare to create a study committee to look into making long-term changes in Ohio's utility laws.
Both the study committee and FirstEnergy's option to allow large customers to opt out of the mandatory programs are the results of the passage early in the summer of Senate Bill 310, which freezes state standards for two years while the study committee decides whether to recommend further changes.
