COLUMBUS — Calling it a “sweetheart deal” and “$3 billion bailout,” consumer, environmental, and power supply groups Thursday said FirstEnergy Corp.’s latest rate proposal would be a bad deal for consumers, the environment, and a competitive electricity market.

“The benefits to FirstEnergy are guaranteed while the supposed benefits to customers are not …,” said John Shelk, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, which represents competing electricity suppliers.

“If, in fact, they could guarantee it, they would, but they’re not …,” he said. “It’s tough to project these prices over eight weeks or eight months, much less eight years.”

The Akron-based parent company of Toledo Edison this week submitted a plan negotiated with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio staff, large industrial users, and some consumer and economic development groups.

It would lock in a market for power generated by several of its subsidiaries’ coal and nuclear power plants that have struggled to compete with natural gas and other cheaper sources of power.

“The out-of-state power producers opposing our plan are betting on sharply higher power prices in Ohio down the road, so naturally they would oppose putting safeguards in place to protect our customers,” FirstEnergy spokesman Doug Colafella said. “Our proposal is that safeguard.”

The utility projected that, as new environmental regulations kick in and power plants close, electricity prices will rise over the next eight years, making the power from its own plants more competitive. But that plan expects customers to help cover any losses if those assumptions prove wrong.

The plants involved include the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Oak Harbor, Ohio, the W.H. Sammis coal plant near Steubenville, Ohio, and FirstEnergy’s share of the Ohio Valley Electric Corp. units in Gallipolis, Ohio, and Madison, Ind.

The PUCO is expected to make a decision early next year. FirstEnergy’s current rate plan expires on May 31.

Shannon Fisk, managing attorney for Earthjustice, represents the Sierra Club. He said FirstEnergy’s projections are more than a year out of date.

“What we’ve seen is that the market has gone exactly opposite of what FirstEnergy was projecting,” he said.

FirstEnergy concedes its plan would cost customers about $400 million more in its first four years, but suggests it would ultimately save customers more than $560 million over the eight years. But a preliminary review by the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel estimates the plan would cost customers $3.9 billion.

Customers receiving their power through the FirstEnergy power grid would share in the risk on the distribution side of their bills, regardless of whether they shop to buy power from cheaper suppliers.

FirstEnergy’s proposal offers up to $100 million in credits on customers’ bills over the second four years of the plan to help offset some of the costs to consumers should the cost to produce its power exceed what it sells for. The company concedes a typical residential customer using 750 kilowatt hours a month would pay about $3.25 a month more during the plan’s first year.

Despite the age of its plants, the company argues Ohio still needs them to ensure reliable and affordable power. They point to an estimated 3,000 direct and indirect jobs associated with its plants.

But Glen Thomas, spokesman for PJM Power Providers Group, said electricity these days is “completely ambivalent to state boundaries.” The PJM electricity grid serves a 14-state region that stretches from Michigan to North Carolina.

“Ohio has seen a fair number of [plant] retirements, but it’s also seen more construction, quite frankly,” he said. “Right now there are four to five plants coming online in Ohio. … PJM is projecting plenty of supply being available in Ohio for the foreseeable future.”

Mr. Colafella said many of the opponents participating in the call with reporters were parties of the negotiations.

“[The plan] provides a clear path to a cleaner energy future by reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 90 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2045,” he said. “FirstEnergy’s companywide goal represents one of the most ambitious targets in the utility industry, a goal that will be supported by a strategy filed with the commission next fall.

“Reducing CO2 emissions over a 30-year period allows time to make thoughtful decisions on how to continue providing our customers with safe, reliable, clean, and affordable electric generation,” he said.

But the opponents said such provisions are simply unenforceable “goals.”

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.

First Published December 4, 2015, 5:00 a.m.