OVER 100 GOVERNMENT LEADERS, COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS AND BUSINESSES FILE PUCO COMMENTS IN SUPPORT OF NOPEC'S RECERTIFICATION

Ohio's Largest Nonprofit Energy Aggregator Requests Swift Consideration by PUCO to Re-Enroll Electric Customers in June 2023 

SOLON, Ohio, Dec. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Over 100 interested parties filed comments with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) in support of the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council's (NOPEC) continued certification today strongly endorsing NOPEC's recertification as a supplier to its 208 electric member communities.

"NOPEC has an outstanding 21+ year track record, and is supported by its member communities, community organizations, customers, elected state officials and others as demonstrated by the overwhelming number of comments filed with the PUCO today. In the best interest of Ohio consumers, on November 22 we respectfully requested that the PUCO approve NOPEC's renewal certificate application expeditiously. By doing so, hundreds of thousands of Ohio consumers will benefit by having NOPEC as a choice when we plan to reenroll our customers in June 2023, amidst a likely higher utility default price environment", said Chuck Keiper, NOPEC's Executive Director.

The Office of the Ohio Consumer's Counsel (OCC), in an appeal filed earlier in the week, agreed that swift resolution of NOPEC'S recertification will benefit Ohio consumers. The PUCO's "suspension of NOPEC's certificate renewal can be expected to lead to more uncertainty. That means more market risk and potentially higher electricity prices for FirstEnergy's standard-offer consumers, "the OCC wrote in their filing calling for NOPEC's recertification.

In August, NOPEC informed the PUCO that it was taking an unprecedented action to help its nearly 550,000 electric customers across Ohio benefit by transitioning them back to the utilities' standard service offer (SSO) to take advantage of their currently lower electric generation rates. While that move will continue to benefit the average residential customer well into 2023, NOPEC needs to take steps now to prepare to bring those customers back to the NOPEC electric aggregation in June 2023, to provide customers a competitively-priced option as compared to next summer's projected higher utility SSO rates.  

Andrew Thomas, Director of Cleveland State University's Energy Policy Center and co-author of several whitepapers on the benefits of electric deregulation in Ohio, said NOPEC "made the correct and responsible decision" in returning customers to the lower-priced electric service offered by utilities, adding that "substantially higher pricing is likely to happen with the next SSO offering," making it critical that NOPEC's competitive rates be available to consumers by June 2023. "The decision of NOPEC to temporarily put its customers into the SSO under recent market conditions should be celebrated, not condemned," Thomas added.

NOPEC acted in August to return its customers to lower SSO rates as utility customers across the nation were seeing higher bills as energy markets experienced unprecedented inflation because of global and domestic economic issues and hotter than normal weather driving up demand. NOPEC said it and other retailers' electric rates spiked significantly higher than the utilities' rates, also known as the Price to Compare, because the utilities rates were determined in auctions conducted prior to April 2022, when energy prices were considerably lower.

Shortly after the customer transition was announced, the PUCO received a complaint about that move from an energy provider and issued an Entry that NOPEC "show cause" to justify why it should continue to be certified as an electric governmental aggregator in Ohio.

In NOPEC's formal response to the show cause entry filed in September, NOPEC explained that its action was to put its customers and communities first, and that it acted in accordance with Ohio law and PUCO rules in doing so. "NOPEC acted in the best interest of all of its Standard Price customers – including the most vulnerable – and returned them to the SSO," NOPEC's response noted. "Simply put, NOPEC's decision was both lawful and the right thing to do."

Nearly 80 NOPEC member communities as well as numerous state legislators and pro-consumer, education and business organizations and others, have submitted comments to the PUCO in support of NOPEC's continued certification. 

Lakewood City Councilman Tom Bullock wrote: "Our community's residents have participated in NOPEC's electric aggregation since 2000, and NOPEC has been a valued partner for our city these many years," citing NOPEC's customer service, stable financing, prudent and experienced management, and ability to negotiate better deals for consumers, giving them flexible choices "without anti-consumer clauses hidden in the 'fine print.'''

Kayla Griffin, President of the Cleveland NAACP Branch, said NOPEC's decision to transition its customers to the lower-priced utility rate option "must have been a difficult decision and not one that any for-profit electric company would have made." Griffin added, "We understand that NOPEC's electric price program unexpectedly increased this year due to reasons beyond its control. We also understand that many customers were already making the switch back to their default utility. The practical impact of this reality is, had NOPEC not switched all customers to the lower cost option, the customers who could least afford higher rates would have been the only ones paying the higher amount. We applaud NOPEC for doing the right thing."

Jon R. Veard, Managing Partner of Property Technicians Inc. in Lorain County, wrote "NOPEC is able to support small and medium sized businesses like ours because of its robust energy aggregation programs," adding that "NOPEC did the right thing for our community, small businesses and residents."

"We look forward to working with the PUCO and its Staff to continue our electric aggregation program, for the benefit of the hundreds of thousands of residential and small business electric customers in the 208 Ohio communities that NOPEC represents," added NOPEC's Keiper. 

The Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council (NOPEC) is the largest nonprofit governmental energy aggregator in Ohio supplying electricity and natural gas to residential and small business accounts in 242 communities and 19 counties statewide.

Since 2001, NOPEC has saved Ohio consumers hundreds of millions of dollars on their energy costs through our consumer advocacy efforts. NOPEC has also awarded over $40 million in community energy-efficiency grants. For more information about NOPEC, visit us at nopec.org.   

SOURCE NOPEC