The U.S. market for electricity is trifurcated. More than half the country is served by competitive generators bidding against each other in wholesale markets. Almost half is served by conventional state-regulated, vertically integrated utilities controlling generation and transmission. The rest, a much smaller portion, consists of government-owned and customer-owned utilities, some of which are generators and most of which serve retail customers. All categories are in transition.

In October 2016, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) offered Akron-based FirstEnergy a five-year, $ 600 million subsidy to be paid by the utility’s customers. The move was designed to compensate for the investor-owned utility’s (IOU’s) large, baseload coal and nuclear plants’ inability to compete in the PJM competitive wholesale market against low-cost natural gas.

Consumer groups slammed the PUCO order as “corporate welfare.” Tony Addison of AARP said the PUCO decision means that “Ohioans should subsidize the failing business model of FirstEnergy.” This, Addison said, “creates a terrible precedent by PUCO and others to bailout companies threatening to leave the state, on the backs of the people that work hard and pay their bills every month.”…

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