How many times can one corporation contradict themselves in one short week?  At least three, if you're AEP.

If you've been reading along here, you'll remember that at their earnings call last week, AEP told analysts that they had a "great quarter" despite good weather (AEP loves them some climate change extremes!) and substantial customer switching in Ohio.  New CEO LittleDrummerBoy said that "demonstrates the value of the diversity of AEP's service footprint." 

Then on Monday, LDB told stockholders at AEP's annual meeting that they were undertaking a "repositioning of assets for a more sustainable fuel mix."  LDB pledged that coal will make up no more than 50% of AEP's generation assets by 2020.

Just yesterday, LDB told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that gas-fired generation is up 24% and that is a problem because gas prices are "volatile."  He pleaded for the feds to slow down the phase out of coal because AEP needs time to "transition their fleet."  This is only because AEP has been dragging their feet and attempting to change reality instead of making smart business decisions. 

Cue the irony!  "Betting on just one fuel to power our energy future isn’t smart,” opined LDB.  Really?  Isn't that how AEP got themselves into their current sticky predicament?  AEP's heavy bet on coal to power the majority of the company's generation portfolio, despite clear evidence that coal-fired generation was expected to become more expensive, was "betting on just one fuel," wasn't it?

AEP just "doesn't make sense," in a white hug me jacket kind of way, if you know what I mean... 

Dominion has cooked up a way to get into your child's public school and indoctrinate them into a lifetime of power consuming sheep-hood by giving away free tree seedlings.

Dumbinion's "Project Plant-it" allows them to infiltrate schools to gather the little children for an assembly about the importance of trees.  Yup, kids, you're going to need a lot of trees to counteract Dominion's effect on your environment.

“This was a great event today,” said Suyapa Fields of Dominion. “These kids were really excited and enthusiastic and it’s just the type of response we like to see.”

Yes, I'm sure it is.  Dumbinion has their glowing finger stuck in a lot of subliminal pies.

Meanwhile, Duh-minion continues to foolishly squander the goodwill of many affected landowners all along the 100-mile length of  their Mt. Storm - Doubs rebuild project by using Allegheny Energy's "Godzilla on the way to Tokyo" transmission line building best practices to get the job done.  If you've got a Duh-minion story to share and would like to join our group of affected landowner watch dogs, email me.  Just saying, "We're not PATH!" isn't cutting it any longer, when Duh-minion's actions are indistinguishable from PATH's.

Schadenfreude:  pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune.

The schadenfreude was so thick you could cut it with a knife at AEP's Q1 2012 Earnings Call on Friday morning. 

Akins (LDB) set the tone by saying, in effect, that FirstEnergy is "un-American."

"And if it's at the company's expense, it's tantamount to taking capacity value that the company is committed for a 3-year period to PJM to run and giving it to competitors to subsidize the acquisition of our customers, which sort of seems a little bit un-American to me. It's really not competition, it's more a confiscation."

And it was all downhill from there...  Most of the questions centered around the Ohio Charlie Foxtrot so enjoy the schadenfreude in the Q & A section.  Although all the stuttering isn't evident in the transcript, the meaningless buzzwords that these prevaricators use as a crutch are prevalent ("optionality" "repositioning" "volatility" "a transition that makes sense" - hey, that was Mikey's line about the EPA rules - remember, anything that's not beneficial to AEP's bottom line doesn't "make sense.")

Overall, AEP is looking pretty sad!  Revenue is down because of customers dumping AEP and a mild winter (even Mother Nature hates AEP!)  Prices and demand are down for AEP's dirty coal power and gas use is up 26%.  Ut-oh, AEP, pretty crappy planning there, don't ya think?  Read a summary here.

AEP says that pulling the wool over the eyes of the PSC and legislature in WV regarding "securitization" is much easier than it is in Ohio.  Somehow $325M of fuel debt inflated to $400M of "fuel debt" during the earnings call.  The difference is all the unrelated debt APCO tossed into their WV "securitization" amount of $400M.  West Virginia = proud to be AEP's patsy cash cow!

"We have a similar situation in APCO West Virginia where we have nearly $400 million of deferred fuel that we are filing to securitize there. And think we're on a faster track to be able to securitize that close to $400 million than we are in Ohio."

And don't miss the part where LDB starts talking about "designer coals."  That's just what AEP needs -- fashionable, expensive coals that make people desperate to power their homes with only the best!

It's payday, friends!  Since the only payment I receive for doing this is laughter, the really good can't-catch-your-breath-tears-streaming-down-your-face kind, I not only got well paid today, I think I may have also gotten my yearly bonus!

FirstEnergy responded to AEP's lemonade ad by setting up their own special website and launching a print and radio campaign.  Yeah, yeah, I know li'l CoalFella said FirstEnergy had no plans to respond, as recently as Tuesday, however it appears that we have inspired him with our cheerful singing!  FirstEnergy also says that they have no plans for a TV commercial at this time (they're still probably trying to convince Tony the Trickster to play the mob boss).

So anyhow, go visit FirstEnergy's little website, www.forelectricsavings.com  Too bad, forreliablepower.com was already taken, but at least they're sticking with their "for" theme.  What's next?  formanyyearsofpayingforourdeadpathproject.com?  I can't wait!

Li'l CoalFella's new website has all kinds of fun stuff on it.  Hear the bitchy-sounding radio commercials, email the PUCO, or sign li'l CoalFella's petition!  Remember way back when li'l CoalFella's PEAT group had a petition on their website?  It was hard, but I resisted signing it with made-up names.  Not so for a bunch of other people, or so I hear.  So, have fun everybody!  Perhaps we should initiate a contest for the most creative made-up name that gets published on li'l CoalFella's petition?

Ironically, li'l CoalFella and his FirstEnergy co-workers now want you to "Stand up and fight!" after years of trying to get you to sit down and shut up about their PATH project.  Isn't that refreshing?  I'm glad they've finally seen the light and picked up a few pointers from us over the years.

Keep singing!  Perhaps we'll see a TV commercial soon...

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You know what they say, AEP, idle hands are the devil's workshop!  While we sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for PATH's abandonment, there's so many other fun things to pass the time! 

For example, we can wonder if Akins (aka LittleDrummerBoy) explained to the brown-nosers in Danville that half of that $25,000 scholarship he presented to Averett University would be recovered from those same concerned ratepayers who made electric rates "a major talking point" in Virginia's state-wide political races.

That's right, Virginia has recently seen fit to allow Appalachian Power to recover up to one-half of their charitable contributions from captive electric ratepayers, therefore, $12,500 of that "generous" scholarship is going to come out of the pockets of consumers.

LDB also told the folks in Danville a bunch of other fairy tales that I'm not going to bother with, and took a few boring swipes at the EPA.  LDB, you're boring and way too easily debunked.

Completely unrelated, except in its capacity to embarrass AEP, check out these two pages excerpted from one of AEP's subsidiary FERC filings, which I unfortunately found myself poring through as a favor to someone else recently.  AEP executives' "Personal use of company aircraft," "Personal use of executive dining room," and "Financial counseling and tax preparation" that ended up being funded by consumers probably weren't topics on LDB's Danville agenda either.  Oh yes, AEP, poor, poor, pitiful you!

Nuke some popcorn and pull up a comfy chair, it's time for the PATH parent company freak show!  AEP and FirstEnergy are engaged in some serious bitch-slapping and hair pulling over serving customers in the quasi-deregulated state of Ohio.  AEP wants PUCO to set higher prices for the use of their distribution system to serve former customers who have switched to FirstEnergy's lower rates.

AEP has begun airing a television commercial that portrays the company as a cute, little, pig-tailed cherub selling lemonade who is cheated by by a mean, old guy in a business suit (representing FirstEnergy).  If FirstEnergy is allowed to supply electricity at lower rates, "thousands of jobs would be destroyed!"  Honestly, fellas, you make me laugh!  Watch AEP's commercial here.

According to the article in The Dispatch, Doug Colafella, spokesman for Akron-based FirstEnergy, said his company is not planning any response ads at this time.  Awww.... c'mon, li'l CoalFella, you're not going to take that lying down, are you?  Don't you want to air your own commercials showing little miss pig-tails removing her mask to reveal a mafia boss who crosses the street and demands that Mr. FirstEnergy Suit pay up for selling lemonade on "her" corner?  You've even got in-house talent so you wouldn't have to pay actors.  I would suggest any of the characters on this web page for the part, especially the one at the top of the page -- would he make the perfect "godfather," or what?

Don't get discouraged, li'l CoalFella, you can do it!
 
Just what makes that little old ant
Think he'll move that rubber tree plant
Anyone knows an ant, can't
Move a rubber tree plant

But he's got high hopes, he's got high hopes
He's got high apple pie, in the sky hopes

Sing it with me, li'l CoalFella!  I'm sure you can dig up a real winner if you just put your mind to it!

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CleanTechnica, who prides itself on being "the most-visited clean energy or cleantech news site in the world" that "share[s], and inspire[s] others to share, correct information on cleantech and its dirty competitors (there’s a lot of misinformation out there)," got ironically fished in by one of the biggest energy industry scams in Washington.  Yesterday, they published an analysis of PJM's 2011 State of the Market Report, to show gains in renewables and demand side management, and a drop in coal-fired resources.  While that part of the article could certainly be fairly argued with (and is, by many flat earth cavemen), CleanTechnica loses all credibility when it finishes up by quoting The COMPETE Coalition as a "group of 622 U.S. electricity industry stakeholders advocat[ing] for competitive electricity markets," and refers to one of COMPETE's PR spin opinion pieces as a "report."  So much for "correct information."

The COMPETE scam isn't even that hard to figure out.  The truth is readily available for any reporter who wants to spend a few minutes doing something more than copying & pasting text from a website.

Here's what the COMPETE Coalition is really all about:  It is a corporate-funded lobbying group intended to protect its Board of Director's generation revenue monopolies, including revenue derived from Reliability Must Run (old, dirty, generation) contracts and new coal-by-wire transmission projects.  I'm sure it's perfectly legal to pretend the coalition is a 501(c)6 trade association with a membership that pays "dues," and not an organization whose sole purpose is lobbying for their own financial interests.  The coalition accomplishes this under the guise of supporting competition in electricity markets, which is the exact opposite of their true goal.  While the APPA article linked below has more general information about COMPETE's overall scam, a recent example of coalition chicanery would be COMPETE's deployment of shills to interfere in New Jersey's LCAPP hearings.  COMPETE claims that RMR contracts and transmission lines produce cheaper electric rates than building new, competitive generation in high-priced markets, like New Jersey's.  This isn't true at all.  In the case of new transmission lines, for instance, the cost of the project is subsidized by ratepayers in 13 other states, making New Jersey's cost of new transmission to satisfy load deceptively "cheaper" only through creative accounting.

The COMPETE Coalition fairy tale was deconstructed in the publicly-filed Formal Challenge to Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline's 2010 Transmission Revenue Requirement.  The Challenge (complaint), which was filed by two concerned ratepayers with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in December 2011, had this to say about COMPETE:

Click here to read more and see full, linkable content

There's plenty of new reading waiting for you over on the citizens' Coalition blog!

Electric consumers are fed up with the gigantic for-profit energy conglomerates, and a day of reckoning is fast approaching.  The status quo will change.

I came across this article recently.  In it, the author claims that, "utility customers are mad as hell."  He's right, but he also thinks that he can fix that for any willing corporate benefactors.  In fact, he can't.  While he does make one interesting observation down near the end of the article, he's about as clueless as his financiers.

Egan says, "Utilities have the tools and opportunities to respond effectively when they are targeted by guerrilla protests, but utilities face significant organizational challenges. Historically, they have been unable to move as quickly as protesters and are uncomfortable with the kind of direct confrontation espoused by activists."

This is a correct statement, and a weakness we discovered and exploited early on in the PATH battle.  I disagree that they "have the tools to respond effectively" though.  PATH was left with drool dripping off its collective chinny, chin, chin on numerous occasions.  My personal favorite was watching them stare in disbelief from behind the lobby doors as we marched onto the sidewalk in front of their Frederick office 10 minutes before their "media event" that we weren't supposed to know about, and the press came running like Pavlov's dogs.  Their ineffective response was to attempt to strong-arm the press away from us.  Wrong!  It set the tone for what was ultimately a complete and utter public relations failure in Frederick County, Maryland.

The PATH project ignited a fire in the hearts and minds of thousands of citizens in three states.  Other unneeded transmission boondoggles have had the same effect in other states. 

Constant electric rate increases that result in increased corporate profit have also awoken a sleeping giant.  In Ohio, PUCO's recent tossing out of AEP's rate increase served only to empower the consumers.  AEP and PUCO will never be able to stuff that genie back in the bottle.  AEP is now a dead man walking in their home state. 

West Virginia consumers are joining forces in record number in response to out-of-control rate increases and a lack of utility performance.

In Boulder last year, the citizens voted to kick energy giant Xcel to the curb and form their own municipal utility.

America is fed up with the corporate elite in general.  We know who you really are, and what you're really doing.  We're never going back to subservient ignorance of your money-making machinations to manipulate the masses.

The consumers are mad as hell.  Changes are coming.  The utilities can adapt or face extinction.  We're not going to take it anymore.

Dominion has made a filing with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management asking them to suspend Atlantic Wind Connection's $5B offshore wind backbone.  Dominion says AWC's right-of-way request should only be approved after PJM Interconnection first approves the project.  PJM says:

"A spokesman for the group, which has more than 750 members, many with ties to the commercial power industry, said the project doesn't meet PJM's goal of providing reliable and low-cost energy to its customers.

"'It's something that doesn't fit into our existing framework,' Ray Dotter said."

It doesn't fit into their existing framework.  Perhaps that's because PJM never completed studying it last year due to "resource limitations."  However, PJM did manage to find the "resources" to study importing 40% renewables into PJM from "wind profiles for resources further west of PJM."

It doesn't "fit into their existing framework" because they don't want it to "fit into their existing framework."  PJM is first and foremost a cliquish cartel ruled by Ohio Valley coal-dependent generators.  These PJM bullies don't want offshore wind to upset their status quo.  Onshore wind from the midwest will provide opportunities for these companies to own profitable portions of an "energy superhighway" envisioned to move these renewables to population centers on both coasts.  Once this "superhighway" is in place, it will also provide them with an opportunity to undercut intended renewables with new and expanded coal-fired generation in electricity markets.  Offshore wind will cut into their current market share of load on the east coast, and require only a minimal amount of new transmission at four proposed injection points along the coast.  It will not provide expanded opportunities to get coal-fired generation to market.

The fact that offshore wind does not require a new, nationwide grid of transmission lines is one of its best selling points.  Transmission lines are expensive to build (estimates are currently more than $300B for the "superhighway"), take land through eminent domain, and face fierce opposition which causes project delays, or even cancellation of the entire project.  A recent article in Public Utilities Fortnightly estimates that onshore renewable generation, backup generation to support it, and required new transmission could top $500B.  The article, entitled "The Not-So-Green-Superhighway" (sorry, no link, you need a subscription to view online content by this snooze-fest) was written by the same author of this presentation.  Although the presentation is not as recent or extensive as the article, the article sets forth the same basic idea that was presented at the National Coal Council's 2010 Spring Meeting.  After stating that "RES transmission could enable expansion of coal-fired generation by equivalent of 30 new plants by 2020," the presentation concludes that "When public understands this, there will be reaction."  Well, consider this your notice.  React!

Offshore wind is being presented as more expensive than onshore wind.  Those estimates do not take into account the cost of getting onshore wind to market via $300B of new transmission.  When the true cost of onshore wind is recognized, it's not such a bargain after all.  The PJM cartel needs to quit dragging its subservient feet and stonewalling offshore wind.

In this press release the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy (CFTP) points out that investment in new transmission is expected to increase 43% between 2011 and 2014.

"According to the Edison Electric Institute, shareholder-owned electric utilities and stand-alone transmission companies for the first time in 2010 surpassed the $10 billion mark for a yearly investment in transmission infrastructure. Spending on transmission increased nine percent from 2009 to 2010, EEI reported. Utilities and others are expected to invest $54 billion on transmission between 2011 and 2014, a 43 percent increase over transmission investment during the previous four-year period, 2007-2010, EEI reported."

That's because transmission is a tidy profit center for investor-owned utilities.  In return for their investment, these companies earn an immediate, guaranteed double-digit return on equity courtesy of federal transmission incentives and formula rates, even if the projects they invest in never get built!

While the CFTP makes some good points about broad socialization of transmission costs, the wisdom and ultimate cost of a "national grid" build out to support on-shore wind, and federal control of transmission siting and permitting, it's pretty hard to take them seriously or to want to support their "coalition."

That's because their membership (bankrollers) is composed of some of the worst perpetrators of the same bad policies they denounce.  For instance, member PSE&G is currently gouging over 60 million ratepayers throughout the 13-state PJM region for their unneeded Susquehanna-Roseland Project, as well as multiple other transmission projects they are undertaking.  If Susquehanna-Roseland had to be paid for solely by the ratepayers that benefit from it, it would not be cost effective.  S-R will purportedly reduce electric costs in New Jersey and load centers located at its eastern terminus.  According to CFTP, that's who should pay for the entire line.  Instead, PJM's cost recovery policy socialized PSE&G's cost across their entire region.  If we believe that S-R will reduce prices in New Jersey, we also accept the fact that S-R will increases prices to the west of it's starting point.  This "levelizing" of prices within the region is what PJM's screwed up markets promote.  Why is it that ratepayers who bear the direct brunt of proximity to "cheaper" generation must not only pay the cost of new transmission to make electricity cheaper for other load centers without enough generation to support their needs, but also have the prices they pay for electricity raised by the ultimate "benefit" of these same transmission projects?  This is the bad logic that PJM has been getting away with for years with their destructive "markets."

CFTP is just another corporate-funded "coalition."  These "coalitions" always have ulterior motives because, let's face it, corporations aren't in the "warm & fuzzy" business of helping consumers.  They exist to turn a profit every quarter.  Every expenditure is geared toward increasing those profits.  So, while their "coalition" has some good arguments, they're also a bunch of hypocrites.