The two-unit Beaver Valley nuclear station could close by 2021. Source: Wikipedia

FirstEnergy Solutions (FES), the competitive subsidiary of FirstEnergy, along with all FES subsidiaries and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. (FENOC), made a voluntary filing under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code on March 31.

The filing does not involve FirstEnergy or its distribution, transmission, regulated generation and Allegheny Energy Supply units.

FES and FENOC own and operate two coal-fired plants, one dual fuel gas/oil plant, one pet-coke fired plant and three nuclear power plants in the competitive, or non-regulated, power-generation industry.

FirstEnergy Corp. announced in November 2016 that it planned to exit the competitive generation business. On March 28, FES filed notice with PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization, that the three nuclear facilities would be deactivated or sold during the next three years. In the meantime, all of the plants will continue current operations.

In July 2017, FES CEO Charles Jones railed against what he said were policy failures that allowed nuclear plants in one part of the country to close while new units were being built in another. "These policies have failed and they need to be fixed and if they aren't going to get fixed by the federal government, then I think the states will continue to step in and fix them," Jones said.

FES says it will continue to press lawmakers and regulators for aid. On March 29, FES asked U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry for an emergency order directing PJM to secure long-term capacity from FES plants, among others, to compensate their owners "for the full benefits they provide to energy markets and the public at large, including fuel security and diversity."

The Politico news service quotes Vincent Duane, PJM's senior vice president and general counsel, as saying, “We repeatedly disagree with them on the fundamental assertion that there is an emergency.” And the American Petroleum Institute — whose members include natural gas producers — says that, “FirstEnergy’s latest attempt to spread a false narrative surrounding the reliability of the electric grid is nothing more than a ruse that will force Main Street consumers to pay higher prices.”

In January, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) set aside a proposal by DOE's Perry that would have provided billions of dollars in subsidies for coal and nuclear power plants under the guise of grid resiliency.

FERC said it could find that neither the proposed rule nor evidence in the proceeding satisfied statutory requirements under the Federal Power Act of demonstrating that RTO/ISO tariffs are unjust and unreasonable.

At the time, FERC Commissioner Richard Glick wrote, "The Proposed Rule had little, if anything, to do with resilience, and was instead aimed at subsidizing certain uncompetitive electric generation technologies."

FirstEnergy's 3,779 megawatt (MW) regulated electric generation fleet includes four plants in West Virginia, Virginia and New Jersey. These are the 1,098 MW coal-fired Fort Martin Plant in Maidsville, West Virginia; the 1,984 MW coal-fired Harrison Plant in Haywood, West Virginia; 487 MW of regulated generation at the Bath County Hydro facility in Warm Springs, Virginia; and 210 MW of hydro generation at the Yards Creek facility in Blairstown, New Jersey.

AE Supply subsidiary owns two competitive generation assets: the 1,300 MW Pleasants Plant in Willow Island, W.Va., and 713 MW of competitive generation at Bath County Hydro. The company has announced plans to sell or deactivate Pleasants by the end of 2018, and the previously announced sale of Bath is on course to close in the first half of the year.