FirstEnergy Solutions Sees Two-Thirds Increase in Direct Retail Sales

Direct retail sales by FirstEnergy Solutions in the second quarter of 2011 increased by two-thirds versus the year-ago quarter, FirstEnergy Corp. disclosed today in reporting earnings.

Total direct (non-aggregation, non-POLR) retail sales by FirstEnergy Solutions were 11,859 GWh for the quarter, versus 7,130 GWh a year ago.

The growth in direct retail sales by market and customer segment is below, as are totals for POLR and aggregation sales:

FirstEnergy Solutions Retail Sales (in GWh):

These totals exclude Allegheny Energy Supply Co., which recorded 425 GWh of direct retail sales to large commercial and industrial customers in the second quarter. No prior-year comparison was provided, and the large customer sales were the extent of direct retail sales by Allegheny Energy Supply Co.

FirstEnergy Solutions' customer count is now 1.65 million, a 65% increase versus the year-ago quarter. In the first quarter of 2011, FirstEnergy Solutions had described its customer total as "more than" 1.5 million customers.

FirstEnergy said that FirstEnergy Solutions, "continues to successfully execute its retail strategy by gaining new customers in recently opened markets in Pennsylvania following the expiration of Provider of Last Resort (POLR) obligations in December 2010. FES retail sales also grew significantly in all other markets it serves, particularly in northern, central and southern Ohio."

FirstEnergy Solutions also confirmed plans to enter the Maryland mass market later this year. In July (7/15), Matters first reported that FirstEnergy Solutions is targeting Maryland mass market entry in the fourth quarter of 2011. FirstEnergy Solutions also served its first direct retail customers in Illinois during July (see 7/14).

FirstEnergy Corp.'s competitive energy services reporting segment (retail and wholesale) posted $12 million in net income for the quarter, versus net income $121 million a year ago. The decrease largely reflects special items, such as merger accounting for commodity contracts.

FirstEnergy's competitive segment did report lower commodity margin, due primarily to the combination of higher transmission costs, more spot market power purchases (partially due to outages), and lower wholesale sales. These impacts offset improved margin from direct retail sales.

As noted last quarter, FirstEnergy no longer provides, in its consolidated report to the financial community, data indicating the source of customer supply at its distribution utilities. Formerly, FirstEnergy would report, by state, the amount generation sales at its utilities made by FirstEnergy Solutions (further broken into POLR, aggregation, and retail), non-affiliated POLR providers, and non-affiliated retail providers, which allowed FirstEnergy Solutions' total share of customer supply to be determined

FirstEnergy does report an aggregate switching percent for the quarter for each of its distribution companies, listed on page 15 of its report to investors. Although the data reflects an average for the quarter, and is not broken out by customer class, the data is of some utility given that the most recent Ohio migration data from PUCO is as of the first quarter.

	2Q 2011	2Q 2010
Direct: Large Commercial and Industrial
OH	5,654	4,325
PA	3,387	1,056
NJ	427	327
MI	485	427
IL	820	518
MD	146	70
Direct: Medium Commercial and Industrial
OH	428	278
PA	200	3
Direct: Mass Market
OH	160	107
PA	152	19
Total Direct	11,859	7,130
Aggregation
OH	3,658	2,589
POLR
OH	1,729	3,533
PA	1,878	4,668