Dive Brief:

• The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) has approved the sale of Dayton Power & Light's (DP&L) 31% share in the 650 megawatt East Bend coal plant to Duke Energy Kentucky. The approval came over objections from the Industrial Energy Users of Ohio trade group, which argued the sale would drive up the cost of DP&L’s standard-service offer.
• The PUCO accepted DP&L’s position that the sale would allow both utilities to better meet their state’s markets. The industrial group's objection that the sale would leave Ohio customers with $35 million in debts and liabilities from East Bend pollution control revenue bonds was rejected because, Ohio regulators concluded, the bonds are serviced by DP&L's cash flow and in compliance with the decisions in the generation asset divestiture case.
• Duke Energy Kentucky is purchasing the 31% of East Bend it does not already hold as a hedge against the proposed 2015 retirement of the 163 megawatt unit 6 at Ohio’s Miami Fort station and it will assume some East Bend liabilities to complete the transaction.

Dive Insight:

Both Duke’s 1,077 megawatts of generation and DP&L’s 3,400 megawatts of mostly coal-generated electricity feed into the PJM Interconnection grid which, by increasing its integration of wind, is causing utilities across the Midwest and Northeast to re-examine their generation portfolios.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission decision on the East Bend sale is expected by the end of this year but it has already been met with resistance from the Kentucky attorney general, who called the transaction "wasteful duplication" while Miami Fort 6 is still in operation.