Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel - Your Residential Utility Consumer Advocate

Need Assistance? Assistance may be available for Ohioans who need help paying their utility bills.

OCC Annual Report 2022

Highlights

  • OCC served as the voice for millions of Ohio residential utility consumers, calling for consumer protections in more than 96 cases before the PUCO, FERC and the Ohio Supreme Court.
     
  • OCC testified for consumers before the General Assembly on 12 occasions. OCC testified in opposition to House Bill 317 (ESP replacement) and as an Interested Party for Senate Bill 307 (EV charging infrastructure), both 4 times.
     
  • OCC pressed for more transparency at the PUCO and for an independent investigation of the forced outages affecting nearly 250,000 AEP consumers.
     
  • OCC’s inquiry into the House Bill 6 scandal was halted after the U.S. Attorney filed to stay case preparation discovery and the PUCO granted the stay request.
     
  • In response to a complaint by OCC, FERC ruled in December that AEP must stop charging consumers for an RTO Adder (extra profits). OCC estimates that FERC’s granting of OCC’s complaint will save AEP consumers about $20 million per year.
     
  • OCC asserted that DP&L owes consumers a rate freeze, consistent with the terms of a 2009 settlement that OCC, DP&L and others signed. The PUCO agreed and prevented DP&L from charging the $75 million increase while DP&L is operating under its first electric security plan.
     
  • OCC helped educate consumers about utility service during a total of 685 virtual and in-person outreach events.
     
  • OCC added a language translation tool to its website and provided additional printable fact sheets in both Spanish and Somali that can be distributed at resource fairs.
     

 

Document