The changes are part of a revision to a 2007 settlement between AEP, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and several environmental groups.

It was the largest settlement of its kind in U.S. history, and the EPA said the new regulations would save the nation $32 billion in health care costs. AEP petitioned to have the settlement reopened to so it could make less-expensive pollution controls to an Indiana plant.

In exchange, AEP will stop burning coal at a plant in southeast Ohio along the Muskingum River, and two plants in Kentucky and Indiana.

AEP also agreed to produce at least 200 megawatts of power using wind or solar technology by 2015.

An official from the Columbus-based utility says they’re disappointed in Wednesday’s ruling by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Regulators said the utility hadn’t demonstrated how the Turning Point project benefited ratepayers or why it was necessary to meet its renewable energy requirements.

The solar farm planned near the wildlife conservancy called The Wilds was expected to create hundreds of jobs and produce enough electricity to power 25,000 homes.

It was unclear if AEP would request another hearing before state utility regulators.

The state’s high court on Thursday rejected an argument by Columbus-based American Electric Power that the utility should not have been assessed a penalty for taking excessive profits in 2009.

The court, in a 6-1 decision, rejected AEP’s argument that the penalty was based on a law too vague to be enforceable. The court also disagreed with business groups and consumer advocates who argued that the utility should have faced a larger penalty than the $42 million it paid.

The 2008 law gave utilities wide latitude to raise rates but also gave the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio the discretion to decide what constitutes excessive profit.

“Everybody can speculate about how how it’s going to work. But until it happens and gets put into effect, we don’t really know.” Says Zack Glick.

Glick is a third shift cook at Fitzy’s 24 hour diner on Schrock road. Like many consumers he’s saddled with high electric bills.

“Any given month, with air conditioning in the summer it can go as high as 300 dollars and then in the wintertime with gas heat on it’s usually about 15o. Now, six years ago when I first moved in the average bill in the winter was 80 bucks.” Says Glick

Glick is looking for some relief from high electric bills. But, whether a deregulated electricity market helps Glick remains a question. Amy Kurt at the Ohio Consumers’Counsel says Ohio is de-regulating only the power supply, not the poles and electric lines strung through the neighborhood.

“So it’s the actual electrons of electricity that are being delivered through those lines into your home.”

Kurt says that makes for a complicated electric bill. A bill generally identifies five separate charges but only the generation charge, the price per kilowatt hour, is now set by a competitive market.

“If you lose money or if you save money that is part of the risk of energy choice or energy competition.” Says Kurt.

The Consumers’Counsel lists seven electric suppliers now offering eleven different rate plans in central and southern Ohio. Its up to consumers to ferret out the best offer. Glen Patterson of Columbus lives in an all-electric home on the north side. He says it takes a little time and attention to detail to find the best rate. But, he recently decided to change electric suppliers to escape what he called an “outrageous” electric bill.

“At the time I was paying something like anywhere from 180 to 200 dollars a month for electric. I went to both of them then it didn’t drop much because I was paying AEP so much and I was paying Direct Energy so much. But I will know something after the first of the year when they break off.” Says Patterson.

Patterson anticipates less fluctuation in his monthly electric bill under his new plan. And, he says he chose a plan that allows him to change again at anytime with no cancellation fee. Such fees are also part of deregulation. Like cable and phone plans, electric plans can come with termination fees. Public Utilities Commission Chair, Todd Snitchler, urges consumers read the fine print in electric contract offers to know of possible risks.

“What the offer is, what the terms are. Do you have a cancellation charge? What’s the rate going to be? Is it an introductory offer. Is it for the entire term of the contract?

Snitchler says the PUCO still must approve electric suppliers to Ohio and monitor their conduct. Back at Fitzy’s Diner, Zack Glick says he’s taking a wait and see approach on de-regulated electricity markets.

“Eventually, it could be a good thing right off or it could be like OPEC again in the 70s where everyone conglomerates together and says you’re going to pay this price or tough.” Adds Glick.

The Ohio Emergency Management Agency said those with uninsured losses from the storm should contact their local emergency management agency for resources that can help them.

FirstEnergy reported about 1,500 homes and businesses in northeastern Ohio were still without power Tuesday, a week after the storm. Most of the outages were in Cleveland and its suburbs.

Around 250,000 Ohio electricity customers were left in the dark after high winds from Sandy’s outer bands uprooted trees and brought down power lines.

AEP spokeswoman Melissa McHenry says they’re mobilized between 300 and 400 workers from more-western states like Texas and Oklahoma.

“They’ve been talking about this storm for some time, and they went ahead and mobilized crews. And especially once the indications were that it was going to have an impact on our operations in West Virginia, Virginia and Ohio, we made sure that we would have additional crews,” McHenry says.

The weather has already led to canceled flights out of Columbus, Dayton, Cleveland and Cincinnati. Forecasters are calling for winds of up to 60 miles per hour in parts of central Ohio tonight and into tomorrow.

The electric utility reports July-through-September profits of $487 million. That’s down from $928 the same quarter last year.

A company press release lists several factors, including increased competition that’s led to customers switching carriers. The company says the number of customers in AEP’s traditional service area now using other carriers increased from 34 percent to 42 percent during the third quarter.

The company also cited costs associated with heavy summer thunderstorms that led to wide-spread power outages.

The drop in profits would have been worse, but the company was helped when regulators approved rate increases in several states, including Ohio.

There’s going to be a rate cap on customers’ bills such that no customer should experience more than a 12 percent increase due to today’s ruling.

PUCO Chairman Todd Snitchler says the order “…more evenly distributes the rate impacts among customers.”

Remember Hurricane Ike that knocked out power to customers four years ago for days on end? Well, American Electric Power customers are paying for the damage and clean-up. That’s because the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio agreed that some of those costs should be passed on to rate payers. It’s not much, on average 20 cents more a month for the next 7 years.

After the recent storms, AEP likely will ask the PUCO for permission to do the same thing again; this, despite the power company earning nearly $2 billion in profits last year.

“I can’t address the amount of the profits,” said Vikki Michalski, who speaks for Ohio. “But like any industry that recovers costs associated with any natural disaster it’s just a part of doing business.”

Michalski said it’s too early to know how much the late June and early July storms will cost the company – or its customers.

“This is a very long process to get those total costs in,” she said.

But Michalski said clean –up and restoration costs are on track to be higher than Hurricane Ike in 2008, which tallied $42 million.

After that storm, The PUCO let AEP pass on $27 million of that clean-up cost to consumers.

Matt Schilling, who speaks for the commission, said it does not consider a utility’s profit margins when deciding how much storm costs a utility can recuperate.

“It’s really just a cost-based review of the actions they took related to the storm,” he said.

The Ohio Consumers Counsel monitors utility rates. Its spokeswoman Beth Gianforcharo said state laws incentivize utility companies to provide its customers safe and reliable service. And Gianforcharo said the counsel will advocate for consumers if and when AEP applies for clean-up recovery with the PUCO.

“We would be looking for a full review to make sure that the costs that get passed on to customers would be reduced as much as possible,” Gianforcharo said. “Again, we’re looking for customers to only pay what would be considered a reasonable amount of money for these storm recovery costs.”

Many scientists say the June derecho that knocked out power to about a million Ohio homes and businesses is an example of more severe weather to come. Some have called for AEP and other power companies to bury more electrical lines underground. It would cost billions of dollars.

About half of AEP lines in Columbus are underground.

AEP’s Michalski admits it’s less expensive to have lines above ground, and she notes underground lines would not have prevented widespread power outages in last month’s big storm because the high winds damaged many of the poles that take power to underground electrical sources.

“In this particular storm it was the transmission lines that took the brunt of that storm. Sure we had distribution issues as well but we had huge losses to our transmission system,” she said.

Rate payers should not expect to see this summer’s storms reflected in their bills anytime soon. AEP has just started collecting for the 2008 hurricane Ike damage.

But that means about 89,000 customers are still without electricity. Ohio Public Radio’s Bill Cohen talked to some residents about how they’re coping. Click the play button above to hear his report.