As Manchin profits, WV coal plant admits bad deal for ratepayers already facing high energy burden

[Celerity]

FirstEnergy, Marion County coal plant admit bad deal for ratepayers already facing high energy burden as Manchin profits

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/energy_and_environment/firstenergy-marion-county-coal-plant-admit-bad-deal-for-ratepayers-already-facing-high-energy-burden/article_c5fb7abf-d56a-529e-8fd4-3aff76189b5b.html



The witness was stumped. Raymond E. Valdes, director of rates and regulatory affairs for FirstEnergy Service Company, couldn’t give definitive answers to key questions during a recent West Virginia Public Service Commission evidentiary hearing.

FirstEnergy subsidiaries Monongahela Power and Potomac Edison asked the commission to approve a $19.5 million annual increase in cost recovery for fuel, purchased power and transmission expenses, representing a 1.5% hike in total rates.

Asked under cross-examination whether a $55.6 million under-recovery of fuel costs from July to October threatening a greater burden for ratepayers would get worse, Valdes wouldn’t make a prediction. “I am concerned about it,” Valdes said. “I don’t have anticipation one way or the other.”

Pressed by consumer advocate groups about the companies’ lack of energy efficiency programs in West Virginia, Valdes had replied in written testimony last month the companies would “respond accordingly if such conditions warrant an EE [energy efficiency] plan proposal.”

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A coal plant fights to stay open. It could enrich Manchin

https://www.eenews.net/articles/a-coal-plant-fights-to-stay-open-it-could-enrich-manchin/



The power plant that buys coal from Sen. Joe Manchin’s company is fighting to stay open by generating electricity for cryptocurrency mining after being on the brink of economic collapse for years. The plan would ensure that the plant keeps burning some of the dirtiest coal on the market, and continue a lucrative business for Manchin’s family company that sells waste fuel collected at shuttered mines.

The Grant Town power plant is named after a former coal baron, Robert Grant, who opened a mine in the early 1900s along Paw Paw Creek in northeast West Virginia. At 80 megawatts, it’s one of the smallest plants in the state — and it’s the only one that still burns waste coal. And it plans to stay that way.

The plant’s owner revealed in state documents last Friday a proposal to continue burning gob to power superfast computers for cryptocurrency mining online. That could preserve a large portion of Manchin’s personal income. His company, Enersystems, supplies the plant with nearly all of the gob, or waste coal, it uses for electricity generation from large piles of discarded shale, clay and slurry dug out from two nearby coal mines that closed years ago.

Manchin has collected more than $5 million from Enersystems since he was elected to the Senate in 2010, according to financial disclosure documents. His stock in the company is worth up to another $5 million. The plant’s plan to continue burning gob comes as Manchin could determine the outcome of historic climate legislation as he’s profiting from his company’s sale of coal. Manchin threatened to vote against the $1.75 trillion reconciliation bill if one of its strongest climate provisions wasn’t removed. The Clean Electricity Performance Program would have rewarded utilities for selling more clean energy, putting pressure on coal plants to close.

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