The driest summer in more than a decade prompted an Ohio watershed district this summer to take the unprecedented step of limiting the use of water for oil and gas fracking.

The restrictions applied only to Atwood Lake, a popular boating and fishing spot southeast of Canton that has experienced a foot and a half drop in water levels over the past few months of drought.

It’s a scenario some environmentalists anticipated years ago, saying that climate change will require state and local officials to more carefully regulate the use of water for oil and gas extraction.

“They’re not being proactive enough,” said Leatra Harper, director of the FreshWater Accountability Project, stressing that the lakes are public resources. “The obvious issue is there aren’t adequate protections.”

Hydraulic fracturing, as it’s more formally known, pumps millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals down into oil and gas wells. The process causes cracks in petroleum-bearing rock, and sand in the fluid props the cracks open. Oil and gas flows from the fractures into the well and up to the surface.

The process uses millions of gallons of water for each horizontally drilled well, and well pads built within the last 12 years often have six wells. The water can be recovered and recycled to some extent. Eventually, though, the water must be disposed of in underground injection wells. That step permanently removes it from the water cycle.

The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District manages ten lakes and four dry dams in southeastern Ohio for purposes of flood control, recreation and conservation. One of its biggest customers for water sales is the oil and gas industry.

“We’re not in a crisis situation by any stretch of the imagination, but this was just our balancing act to make sure we protect, as much as we can, all of our missions,” said Craig Butler, chief executive of the district. He estimated less than one inch of Atwood Lake’s decline can be attributed to oil- and gas-related withdrawals.

On August 28, the district curtailed water withdrawals by 75% from Atwood Lake. The following week, it curtailed withdrawals from the lake completely.

Lots of water

Under Ohio law, oil and gas drilling operations are generally allowed to withdraw from state waters an average of up to 2 million gallons per day in any 30-day period. Sixty million gallons would fill nearly 91 Olympic-sized swimming pools. 

While the total number of gallons sold is huge, it’s relatively small compared to the billions of gallons in the district’s lakes. Butler compared it to two or three sheets in a notebook.

“We’re really comfortable when we say it’s a negligible impact based on the size of our reservoirs,” Butler said.

Oil and gas companies pay a price for the water — around $3 per 1,000 gallons, according to Ted Auch, Midwest program director for FracTracker. He and other critics think the price should be higher.

“We charge as much as we can,” Butler answered, but if the district’s price gets too high, oil and gas companies can “stick their straw in” elsewhere, such as where a stream crosses private property. Then they may be able to suck out even more without a formal agreement with the watershed organization.

And because some of those sources flow into the district’s lakes, the effect on the district’s water resources would be largely the same, without the district getting revenue from the sales. Some of the funds from the oil and gas industry have paid for efforts to improve water quality and minimize flooding to improve the area’s resilience to climate change, Butler added.

The situation reflects a shortcoming in state law, said Melinda Zemper, a spokesperson for Save Ohio Parks.

“It is clear our state legislators ignore the depletion and contamination of our precious fresh drinking water used in the fracking process,” she said. “And there will always be another landowner who wants oil and gas revenue from leasing mineral rights or selling water flowing through his or her property.”

Operators recycle a lot of the water that’s withdrawn, and the fracking process has gotten more efficient over the years, said Mike Chadsey, a spokesperson for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.

Getting hard data on recycling is difficult, however. FracFocus, a data clearinghouse, has some data on the composition of fracking fluids, but reporting is voluntary.

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, oil and gas ranks seventh out of its eight registered water use categories. The agency’s 2022 water withdrawals map shows those other categories include public water supplies, agriculture, utilities and other classifications.

Total water withdrawals for the oil and gas industry that year were about 5.17 billion gallons, according to data provided by Karina Cheung, an ODNR spokesperson. A 2024 U.S. Geological Survey report said peak withdrawals reached approximately 5.75 billion gallons in 2017.  

Looking ahead

Questions about future water use for fracking will remain after the current drought ends — possibly soon from the remnants of Hurricane Helene. 

The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District does a careful review of any company’s request for water withdrawals before a contract is signed, Butler said. Contracts also say water withdrawals can be curtailed if the district deems it necessary, as it did at Atwood Lake, he added.

Critics like Auch contend various data gaps should be filled to ensure more complete reporting. They also want any pre-withdrawal reviews to be more conservative and forward-looking.

Consideration of potential impacts should focus more on possible water-deficit years like this one, Auch said. Otherwise, “you are rapidly altering the savings bank of your watershed by depleting the resource that it has to carry over from year to year.”

Planning also should cover a longer time horizon, said Julie Weatherington-Rice, a hydrogeologist with Bennett and Williams Environmental Consultants in Columbus. Ohio might generally expect warmer, wetter and wilder weather as climate change continues.

Among other things, Ohio is seeing some intense storms, as well as periods of heavy rainfall. Those heavy rains might bump up the total yearly precipitation, but they don’t soak into the ground the way milder, more sustained rains do, Weatherington-Rice said. That could affect groundwater supplies for local areas, causing them to look for backup supplies, she said. And droughts can still occur, as this year shows.  

Water planning also should account for likely migration into Ohio as climate change has more severe impacts elsewhere, Auch said. “We need to start looking at water resources out 10, 15, 30 years.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount gas companies pay for water. It is around $3 per 1,000 gallons of water, not $3 per gallon.

Ohio drought renews worries about massive use of water for fracking is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A federal grant will help four of Ohio’s largest cities collaborate on new voluntary building performance standards and a resource hub to help commercial building owners save energy and cut emissions.

Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton will use $10 million in Inflation Reduction Act funding to establish the Ohio High Performance Building Hub, which will connect building owners with technical guidance, financing solutions, incentives, training, and other support.

Clean energy advocates and city sustainability leaders hope the program will offer a new path forward in a state where buildings account for about one-fourth of greenhouse gas emissions but state lawmakers have gutted mandatory energy efficiency measures. The state ranked 44th in a recent state energy efficiency policy report card.

“All four of those cities have ambitious climate goals, and addressing existing buildings is a crucial part of that,” said Nat Ziegler, a program manager with Power a Clean Future Ohio, which is a partner on the grant. They expect lessons learned from the work and the hub can eventually help other cities and towns in Ohio and across the Midwest.

Buildings account for a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions in the four cities participating in the grant: greater than 60% for Cincinnati and from 50% to 55% for Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton. The new program will specifically target emissions from more than 421 million square feet of commercial building space among the four cities.

“This is a great way to really jump-start a lot of that work,” said Erin Beck, assistant director for Sustainable Columbus.

The hub could help building owners navigate funding under the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as through bonds issued by the Ohio Air Quality Development Agency or local port authorities or lending from green banks or more traditional financial institutions.  

Standards vs. codes

Existing building energy codes “apply primarily to new construction and major renovations, which is great. But most buildings already exist, right?” said Amanda Webb, an assistant professor of architectural engineering at the University of Cincinnati, which was the lead recipient of an earlier $2.9 million grant focused on developing technical guidance for the voluntary standards.

Work under both Department of Energy grants focuses on “coming up with a way to help really deliver the benefits of energy efficiency to existing buildings at scale,” Webb said.

The standards will differ from more general guidelines such as the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program, which largely emphasize new construction and a broader range of sustainability measures than energy use and emissions. 

Cities will use the technical guidance from the work by Webb’s group and results from outreach to develop standards, rather than codes. The difference is codes are mandatory, with penalties for violations, whereas standards are not.

“The approach that we’re taking with this is definitely much more of a carrot approach” than a stick, said Robert McCracken, who heads up energy management for the Office of Environment & Sustainability in Cincinnati, which is the lead partner on the project.

The reasons are largely legal, as well as political. Over the past decade, leadership in the Ohio General Assembly has generally opposed imposing requirements to cut pollution, and a bill for utilities to provide voluntary energy efficiency programs still has not passed.

As a legal matter, cities generally can’t adopt building codes stricter than those established by the Ohio Board of Building Standards. However, the board doesn’t have authority to set requirements for benchmarking emissions or performance standards for existing buildings. The cities’ grant application said the board confirmed that a delegation of authority won’t be needed, as long as they don’t adopt new construction codes.

Energy efficiency provides its own incentives for building owners, because “it saves money,” said Oliver Kroner, who heads up Cincinnati’s Office of Environment & Sustainability. “People are generally aligned with the [city’s] climate commitments. But there’s sometimes the gap with what you want to do and how to get there.”

Lower costs for building owners can also let them charge lower rents, which can attract tenants. “We frequently receive inquiries from companies who are considering relocating, and they’re interested in the climate effort here,” Kroner said.

Ziegler said many of their organization’s 50 local government members also have shown interest in getting help for cutting building emissions. The independent hub to be set up under the new grant will really help building owners with the “nuts and bolts” for meeting their city’s building performance standards, they said.

Columbus is the only one of the four cities with a benchmarking policy right now, and the plan calls for the others to adopt their own versions as well. Benchmarking will be key for letting the cities track progress in reducing energy use. Based on existing commercial building stock in each city, the team members estimate cutting energy use 45% by 2050, the grant application materials said.

Beck said the Columbus benchmarking program has “been very successful,” noting the city has worked with building owners to help them comply. Audits done as part of the process have also identified “low hanging fruit” for adding energy efficiency through LED lighting, thermostat adjustments and so on, she noted.

Equity issues

Equity concerns also factor into the choice of standards versus codes. Businesses in historically disinvested communities already face a variety of financial and other challenges. 

“We want this to be a benefit rather than yet another burden that’s imposed on them,” Ziegler said.

Webb’s team is also exploring how building performance standards could be tailored up front to address concerns about affordability. Possibilities could include a metric to reflect greater equity needs or measures to ensure tenants as well as owners benefit from savings.

“We have other grants that are focused on workforce development,” Kroner said, adding his hope that many people from underserved communities will be able to work in jobs to help buildings meet building performance standards once they’re adopted.

As work by Webb’s group continues, the four cities and others will gear up for outreach efforts and other work so they’re ready to adopt standards. “There’s going to be a lot of education and outreach in the beginning,” McCracken said.

Ohio cities to collaborate on voluntary program to help commercial buildings cut emissions is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This monthly newsletter provides updates on Ohio’s ongoing utility corruption scandal. Was this forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe.

FirstEnergy’s utility customers took heavy hits from severe thunderstorms and tornadoes last month. Nearly half a million of its Ohio utility customers lost power, with extended outages causing many to lose food and incur other expenses in addition to property damage due to the extreme weather. 

All of the company’s utility customers can also expect hits from higher energy bills next year after FirstEnergy’s pending rate case ends. On July 31, the company asked Ohio regulators to let it double the increased charges sought — from roughly $94 million per year to $190.3 million annually.

Yet state regulators still have not resolved multiple FirstEnergy cases involving millions of dollars and issues related to House Bill 6, the 2019 nuclear and coal bailout law at the heart of Ohio’s ongoing corruption scandal. And none of those cases will be decided before voters cast their ballots this fall.

Other recent developments include: 

• The State of Ohio settled potential criminal charges against FirstEnergy for $20 million, without stating how the figure was arrived at or making any provision for restitution to Ohio ratepayers.
• Federal prosecutors urged the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s criminal conviction and 20-year sentence.
• Ohio regulators approved more than $100 million in challenged expenses for two 1950s-era coal plants for which subsidies are mandated by HB 6.

In the dark

Grid reliability is back in the spotlight after tornadoes and severe thunderstorms knocked out power to approximately 495,000 of FirstEnergy’s Ohio utility customers on August 6.

FirstEnergy Ohio President Torrence Hinton and other company executives provided a briefing on the company’s response to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio after its September 4 meeting. “We haven’t had this amount of customers out for about 30 years,” Hinton said.

Restoring power took roughly a week, with outages lasting more than three days for more than 100,000 of those customers, data from the company show. 

The outages likely won’t count against the utilities’ reliability requirements for this year because of the extreme nature of the storms. 

Some Ohio lawmakers like House Rep. Dick Stein, R-Norwalk, have already expressed concern about reliability, although they have framed it as a consequence of retiring coal-fired power plants and have called for more electricity from fossil fuels or nuclear energy. 

However, the vast majority of electric grid reliability problems stem from bad weather and distribution issues. Those problems are likely to worsen as infrastructure ages and fossil fuel-driven climate change makes extreme weather more common.

“Without immediate and meaningful action, climate change will continue to cause extreme weather and drive up costs for all Ohioans,” 14 Democratic Ohio House representatives wrote in an August 14 letter, calling for regulators to address the effectiveness and reliability of the state’s current energy strategies, which are heavily depending on fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Read more:

Despite millions spent on service upgrades, Ohio utilities still miss reliability marks (Energy News Network)

About 1,000 power outages linger 7 days after storms (FOX 8 News)

Doubling increased charges

FirstEnergy asked the PUCO this summer to let it double its proposed increase for rates and riders for its three Ohio utilities to $190.3 million per year, compared with the $94 million sought just two months earlier.

The requested increase is “primarily due to lower current revenues, higher operating expenses and higher rate base balances” than estimated, said Santino Fanelli, FirstEnergy’s director for Ohio rates and regulatory affairs, in testimony filed with the PUCO on July 31.

Fanelli also said the requested increase reflects the use of actual cost and revenue data instead of estimates for the first five months of the rate case’s test year. A pending bill would give utilities more leeway in using estimates, and some advocates worry companies might pad them on the high side.

In late June the PUCO selected Blue Ridge Consulting Services to help it review financial data, management policies and other information. The commission’s staff will then likely prepare a report with recommendations. Ratepayers will also have a chance to comment at local public hearings, which have not yet been scheduled but will likely include a virtual session.

Read more:

FirstEnergy companies asking Ohio regulators for rate increases (WUXU)

Ohio ratemaking reform bill would give more favors to utilities, critics say (Energy News Network)

Slap on the wrist?

FirstEnergy agreed to pay $20 million to settle its state criminal liability related to HB 6, but it’s unclear how lawyers for the utility, the Ohio Attorney General’s office and the Summit County prosecutor’s office arrived at the number. 

The amount is just under one-third of the bribes the company admitted to paying when it settled federal criminal charges against it in July 2021. The law’s nuclear bailouts would have been $1.3 billion if they hadn’t been stayed and then repealed.

The agreement with the state acknowledges the company’s cooperation but does not require any compensation to ratepayers, said Ashley Brown, a former PUCO commissioner.

Spokesperson Steve Irwin at the Ohio Attorney General’s office framed the settlement as “an important step in bringing the disgraced corporate leaders who used their positions of power to betray FirstEnergy’s ratepayers and employees and the people of Ohio to account for their crimes.” Irwin noted that the company is required to provide evidence, access to witnesses and testimony in the pending cases against former FirstEnergy executives Chuck Jones and Michael Dowling and in a civil proceeding relating to HB 6. “FirstEnergy today is not the company it was five years ago,” he added, noting steps taken to reform the company’s internal ethics program.

FirstEnergy President and CEO Brian Tierney echoed the theme in a press release, saying the company is “a stronger organization today.” 

Others are more critical.

“It is really disappointing to see the Ohio Attorney General’s office let FirstEnergy off the hook for its crimes with what amounted to more of a wink-wink than a slap on the wrist,” said Dave Anderson, policy and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute. He contrasted the August settlement with the potential remedies spelled out in the Ohio Attorney General’s initial civil complaint in a 2020 case, where potential punishments included corporate dissolution of FirstEnergy and penalties of triple the damages caused by allegedly wrongful actions.

Read more:

FirstEnergy to pay $20M, avoid criminal charges in state pay-to-play investigation (Akron Beacon Journal)

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost settles with FirstEnergy for $20 million (Ohio Capital Journal)

Regulatory cases continue

Ohio voters can’t expect a resolution to any of FirstEnergy’s four HB 6-related regulatory cases before casting their votes this fall. Nineteen candidates on the ballot for Ohio’s General Assembly are among those who voted for HB 6 in 2019.

An audit in one case isn’t due before the end of September, and no date for an evidentiary hearing has been set. Two other cases about how FirstEnergy spent money from two bill riders won’t get an evidentiary hearing until next February.

A fourth regulatory case about corporate separation is set to start its hearing on October 9, when early voting will be underway. That date may move, however, because several depositions won’t take place until November and December. Depositions are sessions where witnesses answer lawyers’ questions under oath before a hearing or trial.

Questions in some of those depositions will likely follow up on information from recently produced documents. Possible topics also include why FirstEnergy fired various individuals besides former executives Jones and Dowling in the wake of Householder and others’ arrests in 2020.

Read more: 

FirstEnergy exec was fired amid bribery probe after his daughter pitched a $44k/month contract, records show (Cleveland.com)

FirstEnergy’s chief ethics officer knew about $4.3 million payment the company said was a bribe (Cleveland.com)

Rubber stamping?

Ohio regulators have approved more than $100 million in challenged 2020 expenses for two 1950s-era coal plants. HB 6 lets the plants’ Ohio utility owners pass costs on to ratepayers through 2030. By then the total subsidies could be around $1 billion, according to RunnerStone, a consultant for the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association.

“Consumers once again got stuck with the bill,” said Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Maureen Willis when the August 21 ruling came out.

The PUCO found that while the auditor, London Economics International, made several recommendations and conclusions critical of the coal plants’ practices and spending, the firm hadn’t come straight out and said any amount should be disallowed.

Paul Arbaje, an energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the ruling “sets a disturbing precedent. Coal-fired electricity is not only terribly destructive to our climate and public health, but it’s also completely uneconomical and has been for a long time.”

Higher capacity prices in the PJM grid region will take effect next June and could offset some of next year’s coal subsidies under HB 6. However, critics say the old plants will still be a bad deal for Ohioans. And higher capacity prices will affect wholesale electricity prices across the regional grid footprint, likely raising energy expenses overall.

Read more:

Ohio coal plant subsidies still a bad deal for ratepayers despite growing generation demand, experts say (Energy News Network)

HB 6 coal plant charges mount up again in Ohio (Energy News Network)

Coal company got big payback from HB 6 (Energy News Network)

Federal court filings

Briefing has been completed in lobbyist Matt Borges’ appeal from his federal criminal conviction alongside former Ohio House speaker Larry Householder last year. The court has not yet scheduled oral argument.

Federal prosecutors filed their brief in the Householder case on August 26, arguing that the trial court got both Householder’s conviction and his 20-year sentence right. Three groups also filed a friend-of-the-court brief on August 30, countering Householder’s argument that bribes were campaign donations and a form of speech protected under the Constitution.

“The First Amendment provides no protection for the corrupt and knowing exchange of campaign contributions for official acts,” wrote lawyers for the Campaign Legal Center, the Environmental Law & Policy Center and the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

A July court filing in FirstEnergy’s deferred prosecution agreement case acknowledged the company has performed its obligations under that 2021 settlement, which resulted in a $230 million penalty. FirstEnergy must continue to cooperate in any other criminal cases the federal government brings relating to facts stated in that HB 6 case. However, the federal government has yet to bring criminal charges against any current or former FirstEnergy executives who allegedly made the bribes.

A separate case at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals involves FirstEnergy’s challenge to Judge Algenon Marbley’s May 6 ruling that the company must produce its internal investigation to lawyers in shareholder litigation. The appeals court docket includes friend-of-the-court briefs filed by several law firms and a malpractice insurance carrier, expressing concern about whether the ruling could erode attorney-client privilege.

Read more:

On appeal, DOJ affirms ex-Ohio House Speaker Householder took FirstEnergy’s $60 million ‘secret deal’ (Cleveland.com)

Scandal-tainted FirstEnergy demands appeal of ‘shockwave’ privilege ruling (Reuters)

FirstEnergy backed by dozens of law firms in ‘shockwave’ privilege appeal (Reuters)

HB 6 Updates: More bill charges on the way while cases continue is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The leader of a local anti-solar energy group admitted to Ohio regulators last week that a well-connected natural gas executive is among the group’s largest donors.

The testimony by Jared Yost, founder of Knox Smart Development, offered the fullest view yet of the group’s ties to fossil fuel interests, undercutting its claims to be a “grassroots” advocate for local farmers and other residents.

“It changes the story quite a bit,” said David Pomerantz, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group that recently published a report on the fossil fuel industry’s long history of using money and misinformation to stoke local opposition to renewable energy projects.

Knox Smart Development emerged late last year as a high-profile local opponent of the proposed 120 megawatt Frasier Solar project, located near Mount Vernon, Ohio. Questions emerged about its funding source after it hosted a town hall meeting at a local theater with complimentary food and drinks for approximately 500 attendees.

Yost disclosed during an Ohio Power Siting Board hearing last week that one of its largest donors is Tom Rastin, the former vice president of Ariel Corporation, which makes compressors for the oil and gas industry. The Washington Post reported last year that Rastin is also a leader of The Empowerment Alliance, a dark money nonprofit that advocates for the natural gas industry.

Yost said he did not have knowledge about Rastin’s work with The Empowerment Alliance, but said the fossil fuel group provided “non-financial” resources to Knox Smart Development to help oppose the Frasier Solar project.

Yost denied being swayed by corporate interests and said his group has not received corporate funding. “The Empowerment Alliance has nothing to do with me or [Knox Smart Development],” he told the Energy News Network via email. “I have reached out to them and asked questions on a couple of occasions, as can anyone, and as I have done of others.”

Multiple links

When asked in his hearing testimony if Knox Smart Development was “funded by any individuals or entities having any interest or providing any goods or services to the fossil fuel industry,” Yost answered, “No, not directly to the best of my knowledge.”

On cross-examination, however, Yost admitted Rastin was one of the group’s largest funders. Yost is a former IT specialist at Ariel Corporation, and his work supported Rastin’s department. Rastin’s wife, Karen Buchwald Wright, is a former president and CEO of Ariel and continues as board chair. Her son Alex Wright succeeded her in 2021 as CEO.

A July 2024 report from the Energy and Policy Institute includes links to recently produced public records. A September 2023 email shows Rastin was slated to speak to the Ohio General Assembly’s Business First caucus in October. The email attached a copy of Rastin’s biography with The Empowerment Alliance logo on top.

Mitch Given, who was identified in a meeting with Ohio lawmakers last year as The Empowerment Alliance’s Ohio director, spoke at a Knox Smart Development town hall meeting last November. There he was introduced as someone who travels across the state to help farmers and others “find their voice” and push back against solar projects.

The emcee for that town hall event, Tom Whatman, is a chief strategist for Majority Strategies. The Empowerment Alliance’s Form 990 filing for 2023 shows it paid the political consulting firm more than $620,000 that year, making it the group’s highest paid contractor for five years in a row.

Yost last week also discussed a dinner meeting last summer about the Frasier Solar project where the attendees included Rastin, Given, Whatman, Ariel employee Trina Trainor, and Lanny Spaulding. Spaulding is listed as a contact person for The Empowerment Alliance on an Ohio lobbyist registration form. Yost’s dad and others also attended. Yost had earlier said he did not organize the meeting.

Yost denied being influenced by The Empowerment Alliance or other corporate interests.

“No one has ever tried to direct me in any way with my opposition to this project. I am nobody’s ‘puppet’,” Yost told the Energy News Network. “I am doing this for me, my family, my township, and my neighbors.” He also said it was “insulting that people try to question my intentions, integrity, and intelligence. Frankly, it hurts.”

Misinformation at work

Nolan Rutschilling, managing director of energy policy for the Ohio Environmental Council, said arguments presented by behind-the-scenes special interests can be more believable if they seem to come from a grassroots effort. 

“People trust their neighbors because they are often believed to not have any outside agenda other than the best interest of their community,” Rutschilling said. “Unfortunately, this allows misinformation to spread quickly, and communities have stopped renewable energy projects from moving forward.”

The stakes are significant, he said, because local public sentiment is among the factors the Ohio Power Siting Board considers in judging whether a project is in the public interest, along with statewide interests.

“If the fossil fuel industry wants to oppose solar projects, they should intervene in the open — not by amplifying misinformation in communities,” Rutschilling said.

“The Empowerment Alliance prefers to stoke fear in hopes of snuffing out perceived competition from clean, cheap, local renewable energy,” said Craig Adair, a vice president for Frasier Solar’s developer, Open Road Renewables. “As always, Frasier Solar stands ready and willing to address local residents’ legitimate concerns about potential impacts of solar development.”  

Statements at Knox Smart Development meetings and in ads have included multiple examples of misinformation. For example, Yost admitted during cross-examination he was unaware that a photo showing damaged solar panels was taken in St. Croix after a strong hurricane — a highly unlikely event in central Ohio. 

“This was intended to show what I believe could happen,” Yost said. 

Other examples include unsupported claims about solar panels and other components releasing toxic chemicals. Steve Goreham, a speaker at the group’s November 2023 town hall, made unsupported claims about climate change. Goreham also drew spurious correlations between electricity price rises and high levels of renewable energy in California and Texas. In fact, wildfires, extreme heat and transmission upgrades were the driving factors.

Misinformation was rife in opposition testimony people gave at three local public hearings held by the Ohio Power Siting Board in Knox County.

Half of more than 100 unique arguments made by project opponents at those hearings were not supported by the facts, said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, a professor at Cleveland State University College of Law, in her August 22 expert testimony for the Ohio Environmental Council.

“In the aggregate, the arguments do not present credible or compelling opposition to the proposed project,” Robertson said.

Connections confirmed between ‘grassroots’ Ohio solar opposition and dark-money natural gas group is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The pair of 1950s-era coal plants bailed out under Ohio’s House Bill 6 law are likely to remain unprofitable even after a surge in grid operator payments to generators, experts say. 

The PJM Interconnection grid market makes capacity payments to line up power to meet expected demand in the years ahead. Aging, uneconomical coal plants are being retired at a time when data centers and manufacturers are starting to use more electricity, causing future power generation prices to rise.

But even record-high prices in PJM Interconnection’s recent capacity auction won’t cover the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies paid by ratepayers to cover Ohio utilities’ costs for the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation’s Kyger Creek and Clifty Creek power plants.

“Even with a super high price, OVEC is still going to be in the red,” said Neil Waggoner, Midwest manager for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.

The ratepayer subsidies are a result of HB 6, the 2019 state law at the heart of the largest corruption scheme in Ohio’s history. Republican legislative leaders have blocked all efforts to repeal the coal subsidies from coming to a floor vote.

This year alone, ratepayers are on track to pay nearly $200 million to prop up the two plants, one of which is in Indiana. By 2030, total ratepayer costs from the bailout could exceed $1 billion, according to RunnerStone, a consultant for the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association.

Starting next summer, the payments for generators to be ready to supply electricity when PJM Interconnection needs it will jump to about nine times the current rate for most of the grid operator’s service region. 

“Put simply, the market pays participants for the promise to produce electricity when called upon by PJM,” said Daniel Lockwood, a spokesperson for the regional grid operator. An auction sets the levels for each year’s capacity payments, and the payments go to generators that bid the clearing price or less.

A spokesperson for the power plants did not directly answer the Energy News Network’s question about whether both cleared the latest PJM auction, although he described the auction results as “positive.”

“The auction results were a positive development for the OVEC plants and are more broadly a signal to the market that additional generation resources are needed in the PJM region,” said Scott Blake, a spokesperson for American Electric Power and Ohio Valley Electric Corp. While the HB 6 rider charges depend on multiple factors, the impact of the 2025/2026 capacity pricing “is expected to be positive for customers,” he said.

AEP is OVEC’s largest shareholder, along with other utility companies in Ohio and other states.

HB 6’s OVEC subsidies currently require Ohio’s residential utility customers to pay between $1.30 and $1.50 per month, depending on whether their utility is owned by AEP, AES Ohio, Duke Energy or FirstEnergy, according to PUCO data from spokesperson Brittany Waugaman. Businesses pay for the rider, too. The HB 6 rider’s net total costs last year were more than $148 million.

Doing the math

While capacity payments will reduce the OVEC plants’ total costs to Ohio ratepayers, the revenue won’t, in itself, make the plants profitable.

Expert testimony from a Michigan case last year found the OVEC plants would need capacity payments averaging about $418/MW-day for several years to become economical. Last month’s record-high price that will take effect next summer was about $270/MW-day.

Economic analyst Devi Glick of Synapse Energy Economics testified in the case on behalf of the Sierra Club.

“To massively oversimplify the economics of the OVEC plants, there are two categories of costs and two categories of revenues,” Glick told Energy News Network. “Costs are on one side of the equation and revenues on the other.”

Based on then-current projections for costs and energy market revenue, Glick calculated what the plants’ capacity revenues would have to be for the equation to balance out.

Several caveats would apply, Waggoner acknowledged, including any differences from last year to this year that could affect projected energy revenues. Nonetheless, he noted, a significant gap would remain.

Glick’s estimate of about $418 as a break-even capacity price for the OVEC plants is realistic and may even be conservative now, said John Seryak, managing partner for RunnerStone.

“PJM is no longer paying for a coal plant’s full power capacity anymore under new rules it created just prior to this capacity auction,” Seryak explained. “That could mean that OVEC needs even higher-priced capacity and energy to be profitable.”

“Future energy market prices, OVEC’s future coal costs, and OVEC’s environmental compliance costs will also be important factors determining the extent of its losses or profitability,” Seryak continued. “All that said, we do not anticipate OVEC operating at a profit without further price increases.”

Meeting energy demand

Blake emphasized the OVEC plants’ role as a “reliable generation resource for our customers and for our region,” adding that the HB 6 rider “ensures that customers in Ohio receive electricity from OVEC for what it costs to produce it and the funds are used to pay down debt with no proceeds going to shareholders.”

That’s not exactly correct, said attorney Kimberly Bojko at Carpenter Lipps, who represents the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association in cases at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. “Customers pay the cost to operate and run OVEC and the power produced from OVEC is then sold into the wholesale electric market,” she said. Any revenue offsets the costs of HB 6’s coal subsidy.

The Ohio Manufacturers’ Association also has disputed the use of the HB 6 rider to pay down the OVEC plants’ debt in cases before the PUCO.

“By using ratepayer funds to pay down its debt, AEP Ohio is essentially shifting its bad debt to the Ohio ratepayers,” Seryak said. “It’s akin to if a person forced their neighbor to pay for their mortgage payment.”

“Customers pay for more than just OVEC’s debt, though,” Seryak added. “Customers also pay for losses in the energy market OVEC incurs. When this occurs, it means the electric grid does not need OVEC for reliability. Instead, OVEC is burning coal pointlessly at a loss and charging it to Ohio’s ratepayers.”

Ohio coal plant subsidies still a bad deal for ratepayers despite growing generation demand, experts say is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.