From NOPEC Executive Director Chuck Keiper

RE: NOPEC Electric Recertification Status

February 3, 2023

As promised, I wanted to provide another update on the latest happenings in our ongoing efforts to secure our electric recertification with the PUCO. Later this afternoon, we will be filing reply comments with the PUCO that will address, in detail, comments filed by a couple of our competitors or their affiliates in the PUCO docket last Friday. As you may recall from previous communications, NOPEC filed our initial response to the PUCO on September 28th explaining that we complied with Ohio law in returning our 550,000 customers to the lower-cost utility Standard Service Offer last August. We also have complied with all regulatory requirements necessary for the PUCO to approve our renewal certificate we filed November 22nd to be recertified.

However, three for-profit entities that stand to benefit most from a delay or denial of NOPEC's electric recertification continue to level false, misleading, sensationalized and unsubstantiated claims against us --which is no surprise given they have the most to competitively gain in this process. We take particular exception to two purposely misleading claims leveled by one of those for-profit entities:

• First, NOPEC hasn't "profiteered" from returning its customers to the lower price utility SSO. In fact, NOPEC has not received one penny from the customer return. NOP EC is a not-for-profit and proceeds ultimately realized from this or any other strategies we undertake will be used to help customers when we resume our electric aggregation.
• Second, the idea that our customers were NOPE C's "lowest priority," as one of our for-profit competitors asserts, is not only false but absurd on its face. We took the voluntary --and legal --steps to make sure our customers - your residents and small businesses --could get lower electric rates last Fall. As a result, these hundreds of thousands of Ohio electricity users have benefitted from lower rates on their electric bills for months now and will continue to benefit from our action through May of this year.
• 

NOPEC will continue to vigorously defend the lawful action we took to protect our customers. We will continue to work cooperatively with the PUCO to expedite resolution of this case so that we can provide a firm timeline for electric customer re-enrollment to our communities, residents and small businesses as soon as possible.



We are encouraged by and grateful for the nearly 115 interested parties, including 90 NOPEC member communities, 11 state legislators, the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, the Ohio Manufacturers Association, the NAACP Cleveland branch, our supplier, NextEra, and a number of other pro-consumer education and business organizations that filed comments with the PUCO in support of NOPEC's continued certification as an electric governmental aggregator in Ohio. We remain optimistic and confident that, with that kind of robust support and our continued vigorous pursuit of our recertification, we will secure a positive outcome and be back to serving our electric customers in June, pending PUCO approval to do so. Resuming our aggregation on that timeline will provide competitively priced choices to help our communities and your residents ride through the current volatility in the energy markets.