Investigation of FirstEnergy Solutions' Pass-Throughs Not on Pa. PUC Agenda for Today's Meeting

An order opening an investigation of FirstEnergy Solutions' use of pass-through clauses to pass-on ancillaries charges to fixed rate customers is not listed on the agenda for today's Pennsylvania PUC public meeting as the agenda appears posted online.

An order opening the proceeding, under Docket I-2014-2416181, had first been scheduled for the PUC's April 23 meeting, but was postponed until the May 22 meeting. Now the item does not appear on the May 22 agenda.

As the PUC did not issue anything substantively in the case, aside from assigning a docket number, it was unclear if the action which originally prompted the PUC's potential investigation was solely the imposition of the pass-throughs on residential customers. Although an agenda description of the docket from the April 23 agenda makes explicit reference to residential contracts, we do not view this as dispositive that Docket I-2014-2416181 had been intended solely to look at the issue from a residential perspective only (which would now be rendered moot by FES's decision to not charge the pass-through to residential customers).

While FirstEnergy Solutions has ceased its plans to collect the pass-throughs from residential customers, it intends to continue with the collection for non-residential customers, prompting a petition for a declaratory order from the Pennsylvania Office of Small Business Advocate to prohibit collection of such pass-through charges