From an environmental group perspective we're very interested and supportive of those lines if they're carrying wind power and clean renewable energy, as some of them are saying that they're doing.

Distributed generation, particularly solar, plays a vital role in terms of reliability, cleaning up the air and saving money for consumers. The efficiencies of solar panels are going up, the costs are coming down, and those entities that are getting behind it I think will be in good shape. People who are trying to stop the progress technologically when it comes to solar are going to be like the utilities that had landline telephones that tried to stop wireless telecommunications. It almost never works to stand in the way of technological progress.

Well, renewable energy wind power can bring costs down. Building new transmission of course passes costs on to consumers. Some of the transmissions being used for renewables, some of that transmission is being used for coal. So what you have to do is not look at it as one size fits all, but look at particular transmission lines and really say, No. 1, are the costs justified? Are the benefits greater than the costs, and therefore you can build a line? Or had the world changed in which a particular transmission line, and there are a number of lines that are being challenged on this basis, given the demand has gone down is there less need for the lines, they shouldn't be built? Secondly the question is is the line carrying renewable energy like wind power, or is it carrying coal and natural gas? The premise of what the Midwest independent system operator did is that these transmission lines, they call them the MVP lines, are supposed to be carrying wind power. Some of them do, some of them don't very much. And that's going to be an issue both before the regional commissions and also an issue before FERC.

The Rock Island Clean Line is one for-profit company proposing to ship wind power produced in western Iowa to the outskirts of Chicago. None of that power would stay in Iowa and a number of landowners along the proposed 500-mile-long transmission line route have opposed the plan. Some owners and farmers have expressed concerns about potential damage to land from transmission tower construction and the threat of eminent domain to push a route if enough willing sellers aren’t found.

 But Lang, and Mike Prior, interim director of the Iowa Wind Energy Association, hope the new organization could serve as a “go-between” to bridge some of the disagreements between land owners and the Clean Line developers.

A front group is an organization that purports to represent one agenda while in reality it serves some other party or interest whose sponsorship is hidden or rarely mentioned. [or denied!] The front group is perhaps the most easily recognized use of the third party propaganda technique.

Larson Shannahan Slifka Group (LS2group) is a bipartisan public relations, public affairs, and marketing firm that guides its practices with one goal in mind: what others may do, we strive to do better. We offer clients an unparalleled commitment to excellence and take pride in our consistent delivery of successful outcomes. Our strength lies in the diversity of our team and its determination to apply creative solutions and unique perspectives to clients' needs. We see possibilities others cannot and have a track record of helping our clients reach their goals.

"LS2group has a thorough understanding of our needs and responds quickly to our requests, coupled with a vast network of strong relationships with key officials."
- Cary K., Director of Development, Rock Island Clean Line

to promote social welfare by seeking to educate and encourage landowners to become familiar with wind energy production and transmission, and expand the wind industry in the state of Iowa to further the common good and general welfare of the people of Iowa and the Midwest.

no substantial part of the activities of the corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and the corporation shall not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or publication of statements) any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office

TVA is in final negotiations to allow a proposed $2 billion transmission line carrying wind power 700 miles from Oklahoma to connect to TVA's grid near Millington.

However, it will be another issue entirely whether Texas-based Plains & Eastern Clean Line LLC can send its wind-generated electricity into the TVA system, TVA spokesman Chris Stanley said Tuesday.

TVA policy requires the federal utility, which supplies electricity to MLGW in Memphis, only buy power priced competitively with other energy sources.

No consumer prices have been disclosed by the Houston firm.

"Inter-connectivity just allows Clean Line, in this case, to connect to our grid," Stanley said. "They do not, however, have the ability to inject any power into our system."

TVA is now waiting on Clean Line to request a "transmission study," he said.

"We had to do studies and make sure we have system reliability. That's all happened and we're in final negotiations with them about what that looks like going forward,'' Stanley said.

After the interconnection study is completed, a the transmission-service study will look at sending wind power into the electric grid.

But some people don't like the project, which is why the bill came forward. Landowners who are wary of eminent domain powers are speaking up against the project. In large part it has become an issue pitting pro-business groups and legislators against people who carry the NIMBY, or Not in My Backyard, mindframe.

Propagandists use the name-calling technique to incite fears or arouse positive prejudices with the intent that invoked fear (based on fearmongering tactics) or trust will encourage those that read, see or hear propaganda to construct a negative opinion, in respect to the former, or a positive opinion, with respect to the latter, about a person, group, or set of beliefs or ideas that the propagandist would wish the recipients to believe. The method is intended to provoke conclusions and actions about a matter apart from an impartial examinations of the facts of the matter. When this tactic is used instead of an argument, name-calling is thus a substitute for rational, fact-based arguments against an idea or belief, based upon its own merits, and becomes an argumentum ad hominem.

"In addition, if granted § 8-503 relief, what Rock Island characterizes as “voluntary” easement negotiations with farmers will actually sound something like “Rock Island has been directed by the Commission to construct a transmission line on an approve[d] route, which crosses your land.” Characterizing the easement negotiations as voluntary under these facts is kind of like giving someone the option of jumping off of a cliff before you push them."

The focus of this assessment is to evaluate the BE protocols’ performance where bi-monthly
meter reading is the standard.

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon

When the values are designated as actual, then BSE assumes that they are actual meter reads and treats when according to the
protocols employees in levelization.

As the number of consecutive estimates increases, the BE performance deteriorates.

...ascertain if using the Prior Period should not be considered for the Base Period if the Prior Period was estimated, and especially if there are indications that there was a large but unwarranted reconciliation.

In the case of scenario 10b (Figure 7-13), which imposed two months of 33%
underestimation followed by a large reconciliation, the performance was not quite as good. The R-value distribution became less compacted around R = 1.0, and the
percentage extreme R-value increased to 8%, four time that of scenario 1b. This might
result because underestimation of usage results in systematically poorer performance of the BE in situations where the estimated month’s usage and the reconciliation amount is large. More testing is called for to verify this result before changes are made to the BE
protocols to mitigate this apparent bias.

Missed scheduled meter reads resulted in a modest increase in the extent of
overestimation measured by the mean R-value, but more importantly more individual
customer R-values are in the extreme tails.

EPRl was asked to perform objective statistical testing of our estimation processes. While we (FirstEnergy) agree with EPRl that the  estimation algorithm performs well for most customers we also believe that performance can be improved.
As such we recognize the need to mitigate any unintended impact to customers in the interim and will as proposed in the settlement:
Bill message customers who received a bill varying by more than 25% from previous year following multiple estimates to remind of
payment options (February 2014);
Exception customers whose current estimate vary by more than 25% from their previous year’s bill for manual review (May 2014).

Lynn Pugh opened her AEP bill this month to see just how much the cold January had set her back, but she found something in her bill that she normally doesn’t see.

“I’ve never seen the consumer rate relief charge,” said AEP customer Lynn Pugh.

Starting in December of 2013, AEP began adding the consumer rate relief charge to customer bills. According to the company, the new charge is a way to help them account for the spike in the price of coal in 2008-2009.

“It’s actually a reflection of a settlement we had with the PSC to recover the cost of coal,” said AEP spokesman Phillip Moye.

Normally AEP pays around $50 per ton for coal, but in ’08 and ’09 they were paying over $100 per ton because of a coal shortage.

The Public Service Commission signed off on the charge and has allowed AEP to keep it on your bill for the next 15 years. Pugh was shocked to learn that the charge would be on her bill for the next 15 years.

Moye said the AEP opted to go with the additional charge rather than increasing the rate on the price of power.

“The impact on the rate would have been tremendous,” Moye said. “30 to 40 percent increase, and that obviously is more than what customers can bare.”   [bear!!  although maybe customers will tear off their clothes and run naked through the legislature in protest?]

Pugh said she understands why she is paying the additional charge, but doesn’t think it should be on there for the next 15 years.

“I can’t imagine that they paid that much extra for coal that every AEP customer is going to have to pay this.”

The charge is based on how much your bill costs. Pugh’s charge was almost 11 dollars.

The Companies responding to this General Investigation proceeding have provided a lot of excuses to the Commission as to why so many customers received multiple consecutive poorly estimated bills that led to dramatically high “true up” bills.
Originally, the Companies tried to convince the Commission and the public the problems
were mainly caused by the timing and size of the Derecho and Super Storm Sandy.
When the problems continued, the Companies started providing further excuses, but did
not take responsibility for their role in creating many of the problems themselves and compounded the problem further by making unreasonable demands for payments from the impacted customers. In Staffs opinion, they still have not taken that responsibility.
The Derecho and Super Storm Sandy undeniably played a significant role in the problems underlying this case. However, all along the way, the Companies made poor decision after poor decision with little to no thought as to how it might impact their customers.
These poor decisions lead to multiple and continued violations of their tariffs. Staff takes
these violations very seriously and believes it is time the Companies own up to their mistakes and provide the Commission with concrete evidence these types of problems
will not reoccur. Further, the Companies should be required to either correct the ongoing problems with their estimation routine or switch from bi-monthly to monthly meter reading.

Hurricane Sandy struck the service territories with large amounts of heavy, salt-laden, snow that tore down trees and power lines...

It is easy, and some may say unfair, to play Monday morning quarterback with the decisions of the Companies. Staff does not believe it is unfair to do so in this circumstance. A poor decision here or there is just that, a decision that did not work out.
What we have here is something completely different, poor decision on top of poor
decision on top of devastating storms on top of more poor decisions with no management
thought of potential impacts to customers. This is a pattern of behavior. It appears FirstEnergy had a plan for integration and was determined to follow through with that
plan no matter the result. Little consideration was given to the customers, “merger
synergy savings” had to be captured. Indeed the Companies suspected as early as
September of 2012 there may be problems, but did nothing to attempt to resolve them
until April 2013. At that point, the problems had become so widespread the Companies
had no choice but to try and address them. However, shockingly, the Companies
continue to act as though they were simply a victim of circumstance. Generally, Staff believes the Commission should send a strong message to the Companies that this type of behavior will not be tolerated, that the Commission believes the Companies did indeed violate their tariff in multiple ways and that continued violations will be looked upon
very unfavorably.

Bad historical usage data begets bad data and, thus, CAD believes the only way to correct the problem caused by the Companies’ failure to conduct bi-monthly reads of residential meters is to obtain one year’s worth of reliable data from actual monthly meter reads. It is the goal of the CAD that this matter be resolved in the best possible manner for customers of MP and PE, who have undeniably suffered - and, in some instances, continue to suffer - the ill effects of the Companies’ meter reading and billing practices.

Throughout the course of this proceeding, the Companies have attempted to place the
majority of the blame for their billing and meter reading problems on the Derecho that occurred in June 2012 and Superstorm Sandy, which occurred in October 2012. However, while the storms may have exacerbated the Companies’ existing problem, it is inaccurate to contend that the storms caused the billing problems so many customers have faced. In actuality, the evidence shows that the merger of Allegheny Power into FirstEnergy in 2011 and subsequent transition issues in the wake of the merger, including understaffing, transitioning from the Allegheny billing system to the FirstEnergy billing system, and the questionable timing of the meter route “renumbering” project, created this problem.

And then, when you look at the other capital that we're spending, it's block and tackle spending that typically is recovered from a regulated standpoint.

Residential sales, shown in the upper left quadrant, were up 0.9% for the quarter, which brings the annual sales flat to 2012. We continue to see modest customer growth in our Western service areas, while our East customer accounts were essentially flat. Average usage per customer has been impacted by home energy efficiency programs. For these reasons, we are expecting normalized residential sales to be down nearly 1% in 2014.

Michael J. Lapides - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Yes, 2 questions unrelated. First, on the transmission side. We've seen in the MISO and in New England dockets where interveners are seeking lower transmission base ROEs. If same things happens in some of -- whether it's the Southwest Power Pool, whether it's in PJM, how -- what do you think that tipping point is where we change or, I don't know, you're incentive or your desire to be a sizable investor in transmission in the U.S.?

Nicholas K. Akins - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President, Member of Executive Committee and Member of Policy Committee
I think, as long as transmission is, at a premium or equal to the state rates, we're in good shape. And I think, clearly, there is an incentive being placed on building transmission. We're happy with that. And if -- really, once again, the FERC needs to send some messages here that from a policy perspective that we want to continue building transmission in this country. And as long as that premium is at or above the state rates, then we're in good shape.

Brian X. Tierney - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
FERC was clearly, Michael, looking to attract a capital into this space. And what they've done with their ROEs has done exactly what FERC wanted to happen. So as long as they, as Nick was saying, as long as they continue to send a signal that they want increased investment in this area, we'll respond to that signal.

Nicholas K. Akins - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President, Member of Executive Committee and Member of Policy Committee
Okay, I think it's good -- I think, it continues to be part and parcel to the overall grid expansion that's going on in the resilience of the grid. And there's going to continue to be spin regardless. The question is, do you really want to satisfy that precursor of transmission being build out to respond to the generation retirements and so forth to optimize the grid so that you can do that as a prerequisite and then focus on the rest of the underlying system. That's what key. I think you got to get through this transitional process we're at in this industry. So transmission needs to be incentivized in that regard because that will provide the greatest benefit in terms of resiliency of the grid, but also in terms of the optimization of the resources that are attached to the grid.