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The West Virginia Public Service Commission has scheduled public comment and evidentiary hearings on a $37.2 million rate increase requested by American Electric Power utilities Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power for their three coal-fired power plants in the state. A public comment hearing is slated for Feb. 29, and an evidentiary hearing is scheduled to start the same day.
FirstEnergy has cited West Virginia energy policy as a key obstacle causing it to abandon its greenhouse gas reduction target for 2030. The utility says its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline depended on a “meaningful reduction in operation” at its Harrison and Fort Martin power stations that hasn't materialized.
The West Virginia Public Service Commission Consumer Advocate Division has questioned a PSC staff recommendation to exclude West Virginia American Water from a staff-proposed $70 million hydrant replacement grant program. West Virginia American Water is the state's largest investor-owned utility, but some publicly owned utilities have higher operating revenues per hydrant than WVAW.
Solar advocates, led by Solar Holler founder and CEO Dan Conant, are fighting a plan by FirstEnergy utilities Mon Power and Potomac Edison to change the structure of net metering in West Virginia. They say the plan would short-change customers who generate their own electricity, but the utilities and others, including the state Public Service Commission Consumer Advocate Division, say non-solar customers are subsidizing solar customers under the current setup.
The West Virginia Public Service Commission issued a misleading press release regarding an audit it ordered of lobbying expenses among the FirstEnergy utilities that serve West Virginia, Mon Power and Potomac Edison. The PSC highlighted testimony from Mon Power and Potomac Edison executive Raymond Valdes that omitted the limited scope of the audit and a concession by the companies that costs related to an Ohio bribery scheme may have had an impact in West Virginia.