Two coal-fired plants – Fort Martin and Harrison in West Virginia – represent approximately 99% of the company’s emissions. But FirstEnergy stressed challenges to retiring these plants by 2030, including future resource adequacy concerns, changing market conditions and energy policy in West Virginia, one of the largest coal-producing states.

“We’ve identified several challenges to our ability to meet that interim goal, including resource adequacy concerns in the PJM region and state energy policy initiatives,” FirstEnergy Chief Executive Officer Brian Tierney said on the investor call.

FirstEnergy maintains a goal of achieving net carbon neutrality by 2050.

Through regulatory filings with West Virginia regulators, the utility is forecasting retirement dates of 2035 and 2040 for Fort Martin and Harrison, respectively.

Fort Martin Power Station is located in Maidsville, West Virginia, along the Monongahela River. Two coal-fired units produce 1,098 MW of electricity. Unit 1 went online in 1967 and generates 552 MW. Unit 2 went online in 1968 and generates 546 MW. The plant uses more than 2.8 million tons of coal annually.

FirstEnergy has invested nearly $625 million on Fort Martin’s environmental control systems. Each unit has a scrubber system that removes more than 98 percent of the sulfur dioxide emissions. The scrubbed flue gas produces a steam plume that is carried from the units through a newly-constructed 550-foot chimney. The scrubbers were completed and placed in service during the last quarter of 2009.

Harrison Power Station is located in Haywood, West Virginia, along the West Fork River. Three coal-fired units produce a total of 1,984 MW of electricity. Unit 1 came online in 1972 with Unit 2 coming online in 1973. Unit 3 came online in 1974. The plant uses more than five million tons of coal annually.

FirstEnergy has invested nearly $1 billion dollars on environmental control systems at Harrison. All three units are equipped with scrubber modules located between the boilers and the 1,000-foot chimney that remove more than 98 percent of the sulfur dioxide emissions. The scrubbers have been a part of the plant since 1995.

MORE: FirstEnergy coal plants seek OK for environmental compliance work

Fort Martin and Harrison represent about 1.5% of total coal capacity in the U.S., and about 7% of PJM’s coal capacity. PJM recently requested the delayed retirement of two coal-fired units in Maryland, citing resource adequacy and reliability concerns.

FirstEnergy claims it has reduced its Scope 1 GHG emissions by 84%, from 2005 levels, through the retirement, sale and/or separation of fossil-fired capacity.

The environmental upgrades at Fort Martin Power Station in Maidsville, Monongalia County, and Harrison Power Station in Haywood, Harrison County, would strive to align with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s updated effluent limitation guideline requirements.

The current process involves using nearby streams to wash coal ash from the plants’ furnaces before disposal. The new approach will involve grinding the ash into smaller particles, creating less wastewater. This wastewater must be carefully treated before safe discharge into rivers to protect aquatic ecosystems.

The upgrades will include the construction of conveyor belts to transport coal ash to concrete structures at each plant’s site. The dry ash will then be loaded onto trucks and transported to existing disposal sites.

The projects, part of a $142 million environmental compliance program approved by the Public Service Commission of West Virginia in 2022, are slated for completion by the end of 2025. Funding for the improvements will come from a customer surcharge starting in 2023, once the first project concludes.

The Fort Martin and Harrison Power Stations are expected to be retired in 2035 and 2040, respectively. The plants generate a combined 3,080 MW of power.

Pleasants is a 1300 MW two-unit coal-fired power plant located on the Ohio River in Pleasants County, West Virginia. The plant, which some top state leaders had pushed to stay open, shut down June 1.

Until late 2022, it had been owned by Energy Harbor, which transferred the plant to Houston-based Energy Transition and Environmental Management (ETEM) for the purpose of demolition.

Omnis is in negotiations to buy Pleasants Power Station from ETEM. Omnis co-owner Simon Hodson told E&E News his company has signed a letter of intent to buy the plant, has secured financing for the purchase and could take control by August 1.

The hydrogen used to power the plant would be a byproduct from Omnis’s graphite production operations, according to a filing with the Public Service Commission of West Virginia on May 24.

Hodson told E&E News that Omnis has developed a form of pyrolysis, where a hydrocarbon is heated at extremely high temperatures to make synthetic graphite.

In May we reported that Two FirstEnergy subsidiaries, Monongahela Power Co. and Potomac Edison Co., had sought to enter into a letter of intent with the operator of Pleasants to run it from May until June 2024 while exploring a longer-term solution. The companies were seeking a surcharge for all customers to keep the plant open.

This was at the encouragement of state lawmakers. During the 2023 West Virginia legislative session, both the state’s Senate and House passed resolutions strongly encouraging Mon Power to continue its feasibility study and to purchase Pleasants.

Mon Power and Potomac Edison said they would continue to negotiate with ETEM in case the Omnis deal didn’t work out.

As for Omnis’ proposal, some analysts are skeptical.

“This is a company that as far as we know has never run a coal plant, and they face the additional challenges of converting it in a way that appears unprecedented and untested,” Seth Feaster, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis told E&E News.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The largest corruption case in Ohio history culminated last week with guilty verdicts for ex-House Speaker Larry Householder and lobbyist Matt Borges, the former head of the Republican Party. But the state’s attorney general said it’s “only the beginning of accountability” for the now-tainted $1 billion bailout of two aging nuclear power plants.

Householder, 63, and Borges, 50, could spend up to 20 years in prison for their racketeering conspiracy convictions. The jury agreed with prosecutors that Householder orchestrated a $60 million bribery scheme, secretly funded by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., to secure his power, elect his allies and pass the bailout bill — and that Borges took part in a dirty-tricks campaign to protect the bailout law from referendum.

The investigation remains open, and additional lawsuits and regulatory actions remain unresolved. Here’s a look at where things stand

COULD THE SENTENCES BE APPEALED?

It’s likely. Householder and Borges are out on bond. They have until next Thursday to file any motions, including for a new trial. They’ll be sentenced once those motions are resolved and the probation office’s pre-sentence investigation is complete, which could take weeks. They will then have 14 days to appeal their sentence to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

These were the last of the parties arrested in July 2020. Political strategist Jeffrey Longstreth, who worked on Householder’s election campaign, and lobbyist Juan Cespedes pleaded guilty and testified in the seven-week trial. The government will likely recommend reduced sentences for them.

Generation Now, a “dark money” group that was used to funnel FirstEnergy’s millions to Longstreth, Householder and others, also pleaded guilty for its role. A fifth individual charged, longtime Statehouse lobbyist Neil Clark, died by suicide in March 2021.

WHO ELSE MIGHT BE CHARGED?

As the government’s investigation continues, a number of other names have surfaced.

In a deal to avoid prosecution, FirstEnergy admitted paying a $4.3 million bribe for favorable treatment to Sam Randazzo, the state’s former top utility regulator, who had ties to the company. Randazzo resigned a day after the FBI searched his home. Randazzo has denied wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged.

There also have been no charges against the FirstEnergy executives fired after Householder and others were arrested. Those executives include former CEO Chuck Jones and former Vice President for External Affairs Michael Dowling, whose texts, emails and travel itineraries factored heavily into the case against Householder.

Prosecutors say the executives met with Householder to hatch the scheme over a fancy dinner in Washington — which Householder refuted on the stand. Jones says neither he nor any other FirstEnergy employee engaged in “unlawful activities in their dealings with government officials,” speaking through a New York-based public relations firm.

Individuals with ties to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine have also come up through investigations or lawsuits.

Lt. Gov. Jon Husted was considered an ally by the FirstEnergy executives in their fight for the bailout bill.
Dan McCarthy was a former FirstEnergy lobbyist and Husted confidante who formed another dark money group involved, then worked as a lobbyist on the governor’s behalf.

Mike Dawson was a onetime consultant to FirstEnergy. His wife Laurel Dawson was the governor’s chief of staff, and she helped vet Randazzo for the utility regulator chairmanship and approved sending a state plane to pick up lawmakers for the bailout vote. The flight ultimately never happened.

The governor’s office says all its employees’ actions were above board — and notes that no staff have been questioned.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE OTHER LAWSUITS?

Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost asked a Franklin County judge last week to lift the stay on discovery in the state’s separate civil racketeering case. That would let him continue collecting documents and deposing witnesses, which he said could “reveal an expanded number of defendants.”

One group of lawsuits by FirstEnergy shareholders was settled last year. A deal required the company to reform its corporate governance, transparency and ethics. However, a shareholder wants the settlement reconsidered, and that’s still pending. Additional corporate governance requirements were included in FirstEnergy’s prosecution deferral agreement. To avoid prosecution, the company must satisfy those requirements by July 2024.

FirstEnergy still faces shareholder lawsuits alleging the company committed securities violations. Defendants include both Jones and his successor, former CEO and President Steven Strah, who abruptly retired in September. A class certification hearing is scheduled before a federal judge in that case on Friday.

WHAT REGULATORY ACTIONS ARE POSSIBLE?

FirstEnergy has faced scrutiny from state and federal utility regulators as well as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Four investigations by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio were paused last week for an additional six months, as the federal probe continues. Those efforts target FirstEnergy’s political and charitable contributions, its compliance with corporate separation laws, and whether details brought to light by the Householder case were properly disclosed as the company sought past rate and capital recovery adjustments.

The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, which represents residential utility customers, was subpoenaing documents and deposing witnesses when the reviews were halted.

Meanwhile, FirstEnergy “fully resolved” matters with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in a consent agreement signed in January. The regulatory commission found FirstEnergy failed to disclose nearly $94 million in lobbying for the bailout bill. It was fined $3.9 million. The SEC’s review continues.

WHAT STATEHOUSE SOLUTIONS ARE PROPOSED?

Legislation containing the bailout gave FirstEnergy a guaranteed-profit subsidy, but that was nixed by a settlement agreement last year. The nuclear bailout provisions of the bill also were repealed. Some lawmakers are fighting to repeal other energy subsidies included in the sweeping measure, which ratepayers are still paying for.

Different groups of House Republicans and Democrats introduced anticorruption legislation this session. They say the proposed laws could address gaps in campaign finance law highlighted by the case — gaps that allow uncontrolled raising and spending of money through dark money groups.

Others are calling for more transparency under Ohio’s lobbying laws, which required few to no details be made public about the plane trips, wining and dining, sports tickets and other perks Householder testified to receiving.

Those bills’ prospects are unclear.

Energy Harbor said it plans to sell or deactivate the remaining coal-fired units at two of its plants in route to becoming carbon-free by the end of next year. 

The Akron, Ohio-based company said it would divest more than 3,000 MW of generating capacity. This includes Units 5-7 of W.H. Sammis Power Station in Stratton, Ohio, representing 1,694 MW; and Units 1 and 2 of Pleasants Power Station in Willow Island, West Virginia, which provides 1,368 MW.

Energy Harbor also plans to sell or deactivate four diesel-fired units at Sammis, representing 12.5 MW.

The company has filed deactivation notices with PJM Interconnection for all of the affected generation and is waiting a final review. Both Sammis and Pleasants will continue normal operations between now and June 2023. The company is also working to divest other non–core, ancillary properties related to its fossil business.

In 2018, Energy Harbor, then a FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary called FirstEnergy Solutions, announced plans to deactivate Sammis units 5-7 by 2022. The company scrapped that deactivation notice following Ohio’s passage of a bailout bill which allowed FirstEnergy’s utilities in the state to receive guaranteed amounts equal to 2018 revenues.

The bailout legislation, Ohio House Bill 6, was repealed, however, after FirstEnergy was charged with conspiracy amid claims that utility executives bribed state officials, including then-House Speaker Larry Householder. Householder and co-defendant Matt Borges, a former Ohio Republican Party chair, have said they are innocent and are scheduled to face trial on the charges in January 2023.

According to a letter to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in October, Energy Harbor said intended to retire units 5-7 by the end of 2028. A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about why Energy Harbor decided to move up the timeline by five years.

The W.H. Sammis Power Station began operating in 1960 with its first two coal-fired units. Two more units came online in 1962. Units 5, 6 and 7 came online in 1967, 1969 and 1971, respectively. Energy Harbor closed Sammis Units 1-4 in 2020.

Pleasants Power Station began operating in 1979. In 2018, it was announced the West Virginia plant would stay open until June 2022, after a previous announcement that it would close in early 2019. The new deactivation date allowed the plant to remain operating until it transferred from FirstEnergy’s Allegheny Energy Supply to FirstEnergy Solutions as part of a settlement agreement.

The roughly $142 million program would include new wastewater treatment equipment at the fossil fuel-burning plants to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency effluent limitation guideline (ELG) requirements.

As proposed, the upgrades at the coal plants would be funded by ratepayers, starting at $0.51 a month for the average West Virginia residential customer. The surcharge would take effect when the first projects are implemented in 2024.

If the program is approved, the companies could complete the work by the end of 2025. Fort Martin and Harrison would operate until their planned retirement dates of 2035 and 2040, respectively. Fort Martin and Harrison were placed into service in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The utilities said they will work to evaluate ways to replace the coal plants’ capacity, which combined totals around 3,080 MW.

Previous environmental actions

In 2020, FirstEnergy said it planned pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. According to FirstEnergy reports, Fort Martin Power Station has spent nearly $625 million on environmental control systems. The company reported each unit at the plant has a scrubber system, implemented in 2009, that removes more than 98% of sulfur-dioxide emissions.

According to FirstEnergy, Fort Martin is also equipped with electrostatic precipitators, removing 99% of the fly ash from flue gases.

FirstEnergy said environmental controls date back further at Harrison Power Station. The utility said Harrison has nearly $1 billion dollars in investments, including scrubber modules that remove more than 98% of the sulfur dioxide emissions. The scrubbers have been a part of the plant since 1995.

Selective catalytic reduction systems remove at least 90% of nitrogen oxide in the coal burned at Harrison.

Former CEO Chuck Jones and former Senior Vice President Michael Dowling were fired by FirstEnergy in October for violating company policies and its code of conduct.

Sam Randazzo, former chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, resigned in November after FBI agents searched his Columbus townhome and FirstEnergy revealed in securities documents that top executives had paid him $4.3 million for his future help at the commission.

The three men are accused in the lawsuit of conspiring to win a $1 billion legislative bailout of two nuclear power plants – operated by a wholly owned FirstEnergy subsidiary at the time. They also are accused of working together to include in the bill an annual revenue guarantee for the company potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The amended lawsuit asks for Randazzo to forfeit the $4.3 million and repay the salary he collected as utilities commission chair from April 2019 through November 2020.

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The Attorney General’s Office in a filing said the three men were added to the complaint because of new public information, including FirstEnergy’s admission of wrongdoing last month in a deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors.

The admission, called a statement of facts, “details the direct relationship and coordination” between the three men and former Ohio House speaker Larry Householder to help FirstEnergy, according to Yost and his attorneys.

“This is the justice system working, holding bad actors accountable,” Yost said in a statement Thursday. “To restore public trust, everyone involved in this sordid matter needs to pay a price. The goal is to leave no doubt — among politicians, the powerful and the rich — that engaging in public corruption will ruin you.”