Dive Brief:
- Dynegy officials have been lobbying against guaranteed profits for AEP's generation fleet in Ohio, Columbus Business First reports, and have met with regulators and the state's governor in an attempt to scuttle the arrangement.
- AEP is asking for regulators to assure its revenue from older, less-efficient plants the company says are needed for system reliability.
- But Dynegy, which last year proposed buying nine power plants in the state, argues that subsidies send the wrong market signals and the plants are ultimately not necessary.
Dive Insight:
Dynegy CEO Bob Flexon met recently with Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) in an attempt to pull support away from an arrangement to keep rival power plants generating with subsidies from ratepayers.
Though the deal has yet to close, Dynegy last year announced it would buy 12,500 MW of generation that included nine facilities in Ohio. That would put the company in competition with AEP, which has been lobbying regulators to keep less efficiency coal facilities operating with extra help from ratepayers.
Flexon told Columbus Business First the governor was "very much in listen mode, because it's a different perspective from what he's been hearing ... He took time to look at our view of the marketplace and how we see power generation in Ohio."
AEP argues the subsidies are needed to support jobs and the electric grid, and believes while customers would pay about $2 more on immediate bills keeping the older plans running would mean longer-term savings.
