By Stephen Smoot
In a repeat of 2024 through 2025 Monongahela Power Company and Potomac Edison, both subsidiaries of First Energy, will request rate hikes to cover costs associated with the Effluent Limitation Guidelines imposed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency against coal-fired power plants.
Effluent guidelines impact industries that release wastewater bound for surface waters and/or sewage treatment plants. These regulations were passed in 1974 and amended in 2024. “The regulations cover wastewater discharges from power plants operating as utilities,” the EPA website on the subject stated.
The rule change last year “establishes more stringent discharge standards for three wastewaters generated at coal fired power plants: flue gas desulfurization, bottom ash transport, and combustion residual leachate.”
While advocates argued the necessity of strengthening standards, others stated that it represented an effort to kill coal fired power plants through adding burdensome and costly regulations.
The cost of added regulations is paid for by energy consumers and has a direct impact on the economy through adding to inflationary pressures.
A West Virginia Public Service Commission release from last week noted that the two companies had “filed an application for review and approval of new Effluent Limitation Guideline Surcharge reconciliation and true-up to establish a surcharge rate for the companies effective Jan. 1, 2026.”
This means that they requested a rate hike, later revealed as $5,150,294, which would help to offset an expected $9,987,289 in “under-recovery” of the extra cost of meeting the regulations. It would bring about a .03 percent increase in monthly rates.
So far two entities, the Consumer Advocate Division and the West Virginia Energy Users Group, had filed to intervene in the plan. Last month, the PSC agreed to permit the intervention and hold hearings on the matter. Other entities had until Oct 4 if they wished to also file an intervention request.
The witness list will be finalized on Nov. 7 and the evidentiary hearing will take place at 9:30 a.m., Nov.18 in the Howard M. Cunningham Hearing Room on 201 Brooks Street in Charleston.
While energy rate hikes negatively affect the economy, states that have denied such requests have seen declines in quality of service as power companies’ resources for maintenance and other needs get stretched too thin.
Most often declines in service quality take the form of longer repair times when lines fail or “brownouts” during periods of high usage, such as the hottest days of summer.
