FirstEnergy Corporation (FE) yesterday filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to bring all of its transmission assets and operations under the purview of PJM Interconnection (PJM). FirstEnergy expects a FERC ruling on its application by Dec 17, 2009, and is planning to complete the consolidation by Jun 1, 2011.
As of now, FirstEnergy’s transmission assets and operations are divided between the jurisdiction of two Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) — PJM and Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO).
The lion’s share of FirstEnergy’s transmission assets (located in Pennsylvania and New Jersey) are under the purview of PJM. Only the transmission assets of FirstEnergy’s subsidiary American Transmission Systems, Inc. are governed by MISO. It therefore makes sense to bring the whole of the transmission network under the jurisdiction of a single RTO. This would avoid conflicting regulations and bring the customer base under the control of uniform rules.
Headquartered in Akron, Ohio, FirstEnergy is a diversified energy company. The company provides electricity to more than 4.5 million customers within a 36,100 square mile area of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It owns 16 plants totaling an electricity generation capacity of about 14,000MW. The fleet consists of 55% coal-fired generation, 28% nuclear generation, 12% natural gas or oil and 5% pumped storage facilities. We maintain our market Neutral recommendation on FirstEnergy.
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