AKRON, Ohio, Jan. 31 - FirstEnergy Corp. announced today that the United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, approved the purchase by its subsidiary, FirstEnergy Generation Corp., of a partially complete, 707-megawatt (MW) natural gas, combined-cycle generating plant in Fremont, Ohio.

FirstEnergy Generation Corp. was the winning bidder in the January 28, 2008, auction, which attracted multiple bidders. The company’s bid of $253.6 million bettered the next highest bid by $500,000 — the minimum increment required under the bidding procedures. According to documents from the plant’s developer, Calpine Corp., approximately $304.2 million had been invested in construction of the facility to date.

With completion of this facility, FirstEnergy will have added more than 2,300 MW of generating capacity since 1999 at no risk to utility customers — about the equivalent of the company’s largest plant in Ohio, the W.H. Sammis Plant. Previous increases have come from uprates at the company’s existing power plants, including its nuclear and coal units; new natural-gas peaking units; an asset swap with another utility company; and contracts for renewable wind power with developers in the region.

“Considering the basic economics of supply and demand, the completion of this facility will be a great benefit for our customers, company and region,” said Richard R. Grigg, executive vice president and Chief Operating Officer of FirstEnergy. “And, investments our competitive subsidiary has made for additional generating capacity since passage of Senate Bill 3 in 1999 have been accomplished at no cost to customers of our Ohio utility companies, whose prices are capped under our rate plans in Ohio.”

FirstEnergy is a diversified energy company headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Its subsidiaries and affiliates are involved in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, as well as energy management and other energy-related services. Its seven electric utility operating companies comprise the nation’s fifth largest investor-owned electric system, based on 4.5 million customers served within a 36,100-square-mile area of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and its generation subsidiaries control more than 14,000 megawatts of capacity.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements based on information currently available to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. These statements include declarations regarding our, or our management’s, intents, beliefs and current expectations. These statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms “anticipate,” “potential,” “expect,” “believe,” “estimate” and similar words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially due to the speed and nature of increased competition in the electric utility industry and legislative and regulatory changes affecting how generation rates will be determined following the expiration of existing rate plans in Ohio and Pennsylvania, economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins, changes in markets for energy services, changing energy and commodity market prices, replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or inadequately hedged, the continued ability of FirstEnergy’s regulated utilities to collect transition and other charges or to recover increased transmission costs, maintenance costs being higher than anticipated, other legislative and regulatory changes including revised environmental requirements, the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures needed to, among other things, implement the Air Quality Compliance Plan (including that such amounts could be higher than anticipated) or levels of emission reductions related to the Consent Decree resolving the New Source Review litigation or other potential regulatory initiatives, adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes (including, but not limited to, the revocation of necessary licenses or operating permits and oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission including, but not limited to, the Demand for Information issued to FENOC on May 14, 2007) as disclosed in our SEC filings, the timing and outcome of various proceedings before the PUCO (including, but not limited to, the Distribution Rate Cases and the generation supply plan filing for the Ohio Companies and the successful resolution of the issues remanded to the PUCO by the Supreme Court of Ohio regarding the Rate Stabilization Plan and the Rate Certainty Plan, including the deferral of fuel costs) and the PPUC (including the resolution of the Petitions for Review filed with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania with respect to the transition rate plan for Met-Ed and Penelec), the continuing availability of generating units and their ability to continue to operate at or near full capacity, the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards, the inability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic goals (including employee workforce initiatives), the ability to improve electric commodity margins and to experience growth in the distribution business, the ability to access the public securities and other capital markets and the cost of such capital, the outcome, cost and other effects of present and potential legal and administrative proceedings and claims related to the August 14, 2003 regional power outage, the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our SEC filings, and other similar factors. The foregoing review of factors should not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all such factors, nor can we assess the impact of any such factor on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any current intention to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Web site: http://www.firstenergycorp.com//

Posted: 02|1|08 at 10:59 am. Filed under: News.