Fortnightly Magazine - October 15 1996

The Ohio Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has authorized Ohio Edison Co. to begin a real-time pricing (RTP) experiment that will test customer response to hourly price signals. The program allows customers to shift usage to a lower-price period or to add usage during lower-price periods.

Participation is limited to large usage customer classes. The program rate is designed so that if a customer's actual and historical usage patterns match, the bill will be the same as if the customer was not on the RTP program. Re Ohio Edison Co., Case No. 96-436-EL-ATA, Aug.

Mid-American Power, LLC has bought a 53-Mw, coal-fired generating plant, put it on the power grid, and plans to convert the facility into a 300-Mw, gas-fired, combined-cycle plant. Mid-American bought the E.J. Stoneman Station in Cassville, WI, from Dairyland Power Cooperative after almost two years of negotiations. The companies making up Mid-American include Power Systems, Ltd., Burns & McDonnell Engineering, Inc., and WPS-Power Development, Inc. The plant supplies energy to two regional utilities.

Ohio Edison Company and Centerior Energy Corp. announced an agreement September 17 on a tax-free, stock-for-stock merger to form a new holding company, FirstEnergy Corp., worth about $4.8 billion, based on stock prices that closed several days earlier.

The news came a month after two other merger deals were announced in mid-August: 1) Atlantic Energy, Inc. and Delmarva Power & Light Co. ($2.2 billion), and 2) Houston Industries Inc. and NorAm Energy Corp. ($3.8 billion). NorAm is the nation's third-largest U.S. natural gas utility.