Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel

Historical Journal

OCC interventions save consumers more than half a billion dollars

In just two years, the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) was able to help get credits for residential consumers and prevent them from paying more than $500 million related to power plant mismanagement throughout the state.

In the 1980s, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio found electric companies to be negligent and culpable of mismanagement in the construction and operation of several nuclear power plants. The OCC successfully defended consumers’ rights ensuring they would not foot the bill for the electric companies’ missteps.

For instance, Northeast Ohio residents saved $568 million in 1988 because of mismanagement and cost overruns at the Perry nuclear power plant. The owners of the plant oversaw a project that was marred with significant costs and delays that could have been avoided.

Customers of Toledo Edison and Cleveland Electric Illuminating also were credited $61 million in 1988 partly because of the work the OCC did to defend residents. State regulators ruled that a June 1985 accident that shut down the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant was caused by utility mismanagement and consumers should be reimbursed for millions they were charged related to the shutdown. The credits represented extra fuel and power the utility companies purchased during part of the outage which lasted until December 1986 because of a failure in the plant’s cooling system.

Next: OCC helps shave off $98.2 million in rate increases