America’s electricity landscape is changing dramatically. Clean energy resources like solar and wind are becoming cost competitive with conventional coal, global corporations like Walmart, Google, and Facebook are pressuring utilities to increase their share of renewables, and the cost of investing in energy efficiency measures is now under half the cost of building dirty, coal-fired power plants.
While some in the utility industry are adapting their business models to accommodate these changes, others are fighting it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Ohio, where Akron-based power company, FirstEnergy, recently gained regulatory approval to abandon its energy efficiency programs. While this move is expected to raise electricity rates for FirstEnergy customers and increase harmful emissions from the coal-fired power plants that will be needed to “fill the gap” of previously offset energy demand, FirstEnergy has much more in store for the Buckeye State. In fact, they are waging an all-out war on clean energy in a last-ditch effort to protect their inefficient, polluting, and unprofitable fleet of coal-fired power plants. Read More