West Virginia Public Service Commission Story Archives - Page 2 of 10

Pleasants Power Station Remains In Limbo As Shutdown Date Approaches

Mon Power is currently negotiating with the plant’s owner to keep it in operating condition and its employees on the payroll.

The Pleasants Power Station will be deactivated as scheduled on June 1, according to an update from the PJM regional grid operator.

West Virginia lawmakers and officials in Pleasants County have pushed to spare the plant from closing. Mon Power is currently negotiating with the plant’s owner to keep it in operating condition and its employees on the payroll.

Mon Power is supposed to report to the West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) in the coming days on how those negotiations are going.

If an agreement is reached, Mon Power will charge ratepayers $3 million a month to keep the plant in standby, but it will produce no electricity. The company will proceed with a thorough evaluation of purchasing the plant and operating it.

In its PSC testimony, Mon Power has said it does not intend to operate three power plants in West Virginia. It already has two – the Harrison and Fort Martin power stations.

Environmental and consumer groups, as well as the state’s leading manufacturers, have argued that Mon Power does not need Pleasants. They’ve also said the PSC lacks the authority to approve the monthly surcharge.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) forecasts that PJM, which includes West Virginia and 12 other states, will be able to meet this summer’s electricity demand without Pleasants.”

“Pleasants is not really necessary for reliability purposes this summer,” said Emmett Pepper, policy director for Energy Efficient West Virginia. “It’s also questionable that Pleasants would be necessary for reliability in the long term.”

The 1,300 megawatt plant on the Ohio River could have shut down years sooner, but the state legislature and Gov. Jim Justice gave it a $12.5 million annual tax break that saved it in 2019.

The $36 million annual surcharge Mon Power proposed is three times the amount of the tax break.

Lawmakers passed resolutions in both chambers encouraging Mon Power to buy the plant. Mon Power planned to purchase Pleasants in 2017. The PSC approved the sale, but FERC rejected it.

Coal has become far less competitive in the electric power marketplace. It now generates less than 20 percent of electricity nationwide, though in West Virginia, around 90 percent of power still comes from coal.

Natural gas is currently the dominant fuel for U.S. electricity, but renewables account for an increasing share. Recently, renewable sources surpassed both coal and nuclear power.

With 65 million power customers, PJM is the nation’s largest electric grid operator.

Those who support the continued operation of Pleasants point to December’s deep freeze as a reason to keep it on the grid. Unlike many coal plants, it was producing power during the storm.

Still, the outages PJM experienced during Winter Storm Elliott were mostly at natural gas and coal facilities. Ultimately, no rolling blackouts were required in PJM’s 13-state territory.

State Agency That Urged Mon Power To Buy Pleasants Pans Proposal

The West Virginia Public Service Commission heard testimony Friday from Mon Power officials about a proposal to spare the Pleasants Power Station from closure.

The West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) heard testimony Friday from Mon Power officials about a proposal to spare the Pleasants Power Station from closure.

Mon Power officials told the commission that they need approval by next week to impose a $3 million a month surcharge on ratepayers to keep the Pleasants plant from shutting down at the end of May.

That drew pushback from the very state agency that first recommended Mon Power look at buying the plant.

Robert Williams, the director of the Consumer Advocate Division of the PSC, said ratepayers would receive no benefit for the extra cost on their bills.

“Not one ton of coal will be burned. Not one kilowatt hour of generation will be coming out of that plant,” Williams said. “They’re saying, ‘we want another year to look at this and think about it.’”

The 12-month surcharge would keep the plant’s workers on the payroll, keep the tax revenue flowing to Pleasants County and maintain the plant in operable condition.

PSC Sets Higher Interim Natural Gas Bills For Mountaineer, Hope

Mountaineer Gas bills are set to increase 15 percent, and Hope Gas bills will go up 28 percent.

Household natural gas bills are going up, but not as much as the companies requested.

Mountaineer Gas bills are set to increase 15 percent, and Hope Gas bills will go up 28 percent.

That’s lower than what both companies requested from the West Virginia Public Service Commission. Mountaineer Gas had asked for a 38 percent increase. Hope Gas asked for a 62 percent increase.

The PSC allows natural gas companies to charge customers for the cost of delivering the fuel.

Natural gas prices have gone up since the economy rebounded from COVID-19. Also, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year increased demand for U.S. natural gas overseas.

The rates the PSC ordered on Monday are interim rates, and the commission said it will review and make adjustments before setting final rates.

Mountaineer Gas and Hope Gas customers will, for now, see average monthly bills of $166 and $173, respectively.

W.Va. American Water Asks To Double Monthly Surcharge For Improvement Projects

West Virginia American Water, one of the Mountain State’s largest regulated water utilities, has shared a $50 million plan for infrastructure upgrades in 2021.

The plan, if approved by the West Virginia Public Service Commission, would increase a monthly “distribution system improvement charge” to customers from roughly $1.60 now to a little more than $3 starting in January 2021.

American Water would pay for projects listed in the plan using these surcharges and its own capital as a national, publicly traded company.

Some of those proposed costs include $12 million for water treatment plant upgrades, to keep up with new requirements from the federal government, and $8 million to help failing water systems that American Water has acquired.

American Water acquired the former Boone-Raleigh Public Service District in August. Earlier this year American Water also took over water needs for the town of Glasgow, in Kanawha County.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.

CORRECTION: This article was changed at 8:20 p.m. to indicate the increase in monthly surcharges West Virginia American Water is requesting. They’re asking to increase monthly surcharges from roughly $1.60 now to roughly $3 in January 2021.

W.Va. PSC 'Disappointed' With Frontier's Plans To Improve Service

An audit of Frontier Communications in March found that the state’s main landline phone provider isn’t doing enough preventative maintenance on its infrastructure for landline phones.

After the telecommunications company promised to make improvements in its response to the audit two months ago, the West Virginia Public Service Commission said Friday it was “disappointed by the omission of any meaningful detail” in Frontier’s response to the audit.

Now, the PSC is ordering Frontier to provide by the end of July specific details, such as how much Frontier plans to spend on upgrades, and when improvement projects will begin.

The audit, which was published with redactions in March, was part of a two-year investigation the PSC announced in 2018.

News got out in April from Ars Technica, a science and technology website, that Frontier had improperly redacted its public version of the audit.

Frontier unsuccessfully tried to redact lines detailing how the company has lost thousands of phone and internet customers in West Virginia in the last 10 years as people switched to other telecommunications providers, according to auditors.

Frontier is still asking the Public Service Commission to keep a redacted version of its audit on the PSC website, even though the unredacted findings have been publicized by Ars Technica and West Virginia Public Broadcasting in April.

Commissioners are still considering a records request from West Virginia Public Broadcasting for the unredacted version.

The PSC investigation kicked off in August 2018, after union leaders for Frontier field staff complained of faulty landline phone service in areas of the state with little to no cell service. Customers in areas with poor service have said frequent and long-lasting outages hinder the ability of local businesses to thrive, and in one case it prevented a Grant County family from calling 911.

The PSC selected a third party auditing firm to examine Frontier’s work in West Virginia in July 2019.

For the last decade, Frontier has had a legal obligation to provide quality landline phone service to most of the state as West Virginia’s “carrier of last resort,” a status the company took on after acquiring former Verizon territory.

In April, Frontier filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.

Hundreds Of Fayette County Residents Under Indefinite Boil Advisory

The West Virginia Public Service Commission has opened a general investigation into the quality of water service provided by the Page-Kincaid Public Service District in Fayette County.

As of May 18th, the entire service district is under a boil water advisory for an unspecified amount of time. It serves more than 600 Fayette County customers.

In an evening statement on Wednesday, May 20th, chairwoman Charlotte Lane said the commission has received a petition with about 400 signatures, complaining about poor service and high rates.

“Many of those residents specifically requested the water system be taken over by a responsible utility,” Lane said. “The commission had been promised that these problems were being resolved.”

In June 2019, Page-Kincaid applied through the public service commission to rehabilitate the Fayette County treatment plant, which would have amounted to a potential 10 percent increase in customers’ rates. The intent of the $3 million project was to install three new water filters and upgrade dilapidated infrastructure, partly in response to a deterioration in water quality in 2018, including high levels of iron, manganese and aluminum.

Upon negotiations with West Virginia American Water [WVAW] in the fall of 2019, the commission granted Page-Kincaid’s withdrawal of its application with the understanding that an alternative plan would come to fruition, such as an acquisition by WVAW.

After Page-Kincaid rejected WVAW’s proposals in early 2020, rehabilitation of the treatment plant did not make substantial process.

Aside from the general investigation, the West Virginia Public Service Commission will require Page-Kincaid to provide requested acquisition information to WVAW.

“The boil water advisory heightens the necessity to explore all available alternatives,” according to the commission’s petition. “It is imperative that Page-Kincaid move quickly to develop a plan to improve the quality of water and water service provided to Page-Kincaid customers.

The petition also requested that a “responsible” utility take over the Page-Kincaid provider.

Now that the commission has declared a general investigation, it will host a status conference at the Public Service Commission’s main room in Charleston on July 16 at 9:30 a.m.