The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is looking for auditors to go through the books of several coal-plant invested electric companies.
They'll check to see if the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies the companies collected from Ohio electric customers from 2021 to 2023 were justified.
Auditors can submit proposals to the PUCO until June 3. PUCO opened the request for auditors on Wednesday.
The subsidies were paid to three Ohio companies that own a share in the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation: AEP Ohio, also known as Ohio Power Company, Ohio-based affiliates of Duke Energy from Charlotte, North Carolina and AES Energy of Arlington, Virginia. AEP has the largest share at 40%.
The companies share in the expenses and profits produced by the two plants, but profits have been down.
Electricity customers in Ohio, no matter who they get their electricity from, have paid $500 million to subsidize losses at the coal plants since 2020. That amount is expected to hit $1 billion by 2030.
The subsidies were created by House Bill 6, and were left in place while other parts of the bill were repealed, after it was revealed the legislation was passed with the aid of bribery.
When an auditor looked at the more than $100 million in subsidies the companies collected in 2020, consumer advocates argued to the PUCO that the companies ran the coal plants at a loss, instead of paying attention to market demands. Advocates asserted that subsidizing the plants doesn't help Ohio rate payers, because the companies don't sell the electricity to Ohio customers, but to the grid.
Advocates are asking the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to force the companies to return money to customers. The commission hasn't made a decision.
Two Democratic lawmakers have a bill that would end the subsidies. The Republican-controlled House hasn’t advanced the bill since it was put before the Rules and Reference Committee in June 2023.
