Dive Brief:
- In a cost-cutting move, Arlington, Virginia-based AES is considering selling Dayton Power & Light's (DPL) roughly 3,450 MW power plant fleet as part of a requirement that the utility separate its generation from the company by mid-2017, company officials said during an earnings conference call.
- If DPL sells its assets instead of retaining them through an affiliated company, the utility would likely exit the retail power business, company officials said during an earnings conference call. DPL Energy Resources has about 308,000 retail customers in Ohio and Illinois.
- AES plans to continue focusing on energy storage opportunities worldwide, officials said.
Dive Insight:
Ameren late last year sold its merchant power plants to Dynegy and another investor. Duke Energy plans to sell its unregulated Midwest power plant fleet. So it's no surprise AES may sell DPL's generating assets, which burn coal and diesel.
“We are seeking to have the Ohio commission approve our plan to transfer our generation assets to an affiliated genco by May 2017,” Thomas O'Flynn, AES chief financial officer, told analysts. “We'll explore all potential options to optimize the solution and we recently began to evaluate the sale of DPL generation asset to an unaffiliated third-party through a potential sale.”
With more than 170 MW, AES has the most non-hydroelectric energy storage of any company. AES is building 40 MW. “We are actively developing other energy storage opportunities at our existing platforms in California, the Philippines, Northern Ireland, and Puerto Rico,” Andres Gluski, AES CEO, said.
