Pa. court rejects request by FirstEnergy utilities to break rate caps, increase electric rates
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Two Pennsylvania utilities cannot raise electric rates they charge to customers and break the deregulation-era rate caps on the cost of electricity to which they agreed a decade ago, a state judge ruled earlier this month.
Commonwealth Court Judge Rochelle S. Friedman upheld a January 2007 decision by state utility regulators to deny the request by Metropolitan Edison Co. and Pennsylvania Electric Co.
The utilities had argued that they should be able to raise customers’ retail electric rates to reflect the increasing price of wholesale electricity. But Friedman wrote that the utilities chose not to sign long-term contracts that would have locked in all of their wholesale electricity costs over the life of the rate caps.
In 2006, the companies, both subsidiaries of Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp., asked regulators to let them begin increasing electric rates, instead of waiting until 2011, when the utilities’ rate caps expire.
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