FirstEnergy's Pennsylvania Utilities' Rate Plan Settlements Will Help Ensure Continued Reliability and Customer Service Enhancements

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Oct 17, 2016, 09:00 ET

READING, Pa., Oct. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- FirstEnergy Corp.'s (NYSE: FE) Pennsylvania utilities filed distribution rate case settlement agreements on October 14, 2016, with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PPUC) aimed at enhancing electric service reliability for more than two million customers across the state.

FirstEnergy's Pennsylvania utilities include Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed), Pennsylvania Electric Company (Penelec), Pennsylvania Power Company (Penn Power), and West Penn Power Company (West Penn Power).

The proposed rate plans for each utility are expected to benefit customers by continuing FirstEnergy's service reliability enhancement efforts in Pennsylvania, including circuit and substation upgrades, pole replacements, additional vegetation management, and equipment inspections. The settlement agreements also include continued assistance for providing service to low-income customers, which is about $95.3 million annually.

Parties to the settlements include the Office of Consumer Advocate, the Office of Small Business Advocate, the Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement, the West Penn Power Industrial Intervenors, the Penelec Industrial Customer Alliance, the Met-Ed Industrial Users Group, The Pennsylvania State University, the Coalition for Affordable Utility Services and Energy Efficiency in Pennsylvania, Wal-Mart Stores East, LP and Sam's East, Inc., North America Hoganas Holdings, Inc., and AK Steel Corporation.

"We appreciate the hard work and compromise of all the parties in reaching settlement agreements for Met-Ed, Penelec, Penn Power and West Penn Power," said Linda Moss, president of FirstEnergy's Pennsylvania operations. "The terms of the settlements will provide us the resources and technology necessary to continue improving our infrastructure to help ensure continued safe and reliable electric service for our customers."

If approved by the PPUC, the settlement agreements would result in the following increases for residential customers using 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month:

Met-Ed customers would see an average increase of 10.7 percent, or $13.91, for a total bill of $143.73, including an increase in the monthly customer service charge, which helps offset the costs for billing, meter reading and other services, from $10.25 to $11.25. Overall, Met-Ed would receive an increase of $96 million.
Penelec customers would see an average increase of 12.8 percent, or $17.62, for a total bill of $155.51, including an increase in the monthly customer service charge from $9.99 to $11.25. In total, Penelec would receive an increase of $100.4 million.
Penn Power customers would see an average increase of 10.4 percent, or $13.51, for a total bill of $143.57, including an increase in the monthly customer service charge from $10.85 to $11.00. Penn Power would receive an increase of $29.2 million as a result of the settlement.
West Penn Power customers would see an average increase of 7.2 percent, or $8.09, for a total bill of $121.08, including an increase in the customer service charge from $5.81 to $7.44. Overall, West Penn Power would receive an increase of $65.6 million.

PPUC final orders on the agreements and new rates for each FirstEnergy utility are expected to be issued on or before January 26, 2017. The utilities would not file for additional distribution base rate increases in Pennsylvania until January 2019 at the earliest, according to the settlement agreements.

Met-Ed serves about 560,000 customers within 3,300 square miles of eastern and southeastern Pennsylvania. Follow Met-Ed on Twitter @Met Ed and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MetEdElectric. Penelec serves nearly 600,000 customers within 17,600 square miles of northern and central Pennsylvania. Follow Penelec on Twitter @Penelec and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PenelecElectric. Penn Power serves approximately 163,000 customers within 1,100 square miles of western Pennsylvania. Follow Penn Power on Twitter @Penn Power, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PennPower. West Penn Power serves approximately 720,000 customers within 10,400 square miles of central and southwestern Pennsylvania. Follow West Penn Power on Twitter @W_Penn_Power and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/WestPennPower.

FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. The company's transmission subsidiaries operate more than 24,000 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Follow FirstEnergy on Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp or online at www.firstenergycorp.com.

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Forward-looking statements involve estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, which may include the following: the speed and nature of increased competition in the electric utility industry, in general, and the retail sales market in particular; the ability to experience growth in the Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission segments; the accomplishment of our regulatory and operational goals in connection with our transmission investment plan, including, but not limited to, the proposed transmission asset transfer to Mid-Atlantic Interstate Transmission, LLC, and the effectiveness of our strategy to reflect a more regulated business profile; changes in assumptions regarding economic conditions within our territories, assessment of the reliability of our transmission system, or the availability of capital or other resources supporting identified transmission investment opportunities; the impact of the regulatory process and resulting outcomes on the matters at the federal level and in the various states in which we do business including, but not limited to, matters related to rates and the Electric Security Plan IV; the impact of the federal regulatory process on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)-regulated entities and transactions, in particular FERC regulation of wholesale energy and capacity markets, including PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (PJM) markets and FERC-jurisdictional wholesale transactions; FERC regulation of cost-of-service rates, including FERC Opinion No. 531's revised Return on Equity methodology for FERC-jurisdictional wholesale generation and transmission utility service; and FERC's compliance and enforcement activity, including compliance and enforcement activity related to North American Electric Reliability Corporation's mandatory reliability standards; the uncertainties of various cost recovery and cost allocation issues resulting from American Transmission Systems, Incorporated's realignment into PJM; economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins such as a polar vortex or other significant weather events, and all associated regulatory events or actions; changing energy, capacity and commodity market prices including, but not limited to, coal, natural gas and oil prices, and their availability and impact on margins and asset valuations, including without limitation impairments thereon; the risks and uncertainties at the CES segment, including FES, related to continued depressed wholesale energy and capacity markets, including the potential need to deactivate or sell additional generating units; the continued ability of our regulated utilities to recover their costs; costs being higher than anticipated and the success of our policies to control costs and to mitigate low energy, capacity and market prices; other legislative and regulatory changes, and revised environmental requirements, including, but not limited to, the effects of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, Coal Combustion Residuals regulations, Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and Mercury and Air Toxics Standards programs, including our estimated costs of compliance, Clean Water Act (CWA) waste water effluent limitations for power plants, and CWA 316(b) water intake regulation; the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures that may arise in connection with any litigation, including New Source Review litigation, or potential regulatory initiatives or rulemakings (including that such initiatives or rulemakings could result in our decision to deactivate or idle certain generating units); the uncertainties associated with the deactivation of certain older regulated and competitive fossil units, including the impact on vendor commitments, such as long-term fuel and transportation agreements, and as it relates to the reliability of the transmission grid, the timing thereof; the impact of other future changes to the operational status or availability of our generating units and any capacity performance charges associated with unit unavailability; adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes with respect to our nuclear operations (including, but not limited to, the revocation or non-renewal of necessary licenses, approvals or operating permits by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or as a result of the incident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant); issues arising from the indications of cracking in the shield building at Davis-Besse; the risks and uncertainties associated with litigation, arbitration, mediation and like proceedings, including, but not limited to, any such proceedings related to vendor commitments, such as long-term fuel and transportation agreements; the impact of labor disruptions by our unionized workforce; replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or not fully hedged; the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards and energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; changes in customers' demand for power, including, but not limited to, changes resulting from the implementation of state and federal energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; the ability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic and financial goals, including, but not limited to, the ability to continue to reduce costs and to successfully execute our financial plans designed to improve our credit metrics and strengthen our balance sheet through, among other actions, our cash flow improvement plan and other proposed capital raising initiatives; our ability to improve electric commodity margins and the impact of, among other factors, the increased cost of fuel and fuel transportation on such margins; changing market conditions that could affect the measurement of certain liabilities and the value of assets held in our Nuclear Decommissioning Trusts, pension trusts and other trust funds, and cause us and/or our subsidiaries to make additional contributions sooner, or in amounts that are larger than currently anticipated; the impact of changes to material accounting policies; the ability to access the public securities and other capital and credit markets in accordance with our financial plans, the cost of such capital and overall condition of the capital and credit markets affecting us and our subsidiaries; actions that may be taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect us and/or our subsidiaries' access to financing, increase the costs thereof, and increase requirements to post additional collateral to support outstanding commodity positions, letters of credit and other financial guarantees; changes in national and regional economic conditions affecting us, our subsidiaries and/or our major industrial and commercial customers, and other counterparties with which we do business, including fuel suppliers; the impact of any changes in tax laws or regulations or adverse tax audit results or rulings; issues concerning the stability of domestic and foreign financial institutions and counterparties with which we do business; the risks associated with cyber-attacks and other disruptions to our information technology system that may compromise our generation, transmission and/or distribution services and data security breaches of sensitive data, intellectual property and proprietary or personally identifiable information regarding our business, employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, business partners and other individuals in our data centers and on our networks; and the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, and other similar factors. The foregoing factors should not be construed as exhaustive and should be read in conjunction with the other cautionary statements and risks that are included in our filings with the SEC, including but not limited to the most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors, nor assess the impact of any such factor on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. FirstEnergy expressly disclaims any current intention to update, except as required by law, any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.