Kentucky regulators and the state’s attorney general filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission arguing that customers of the American Electric Power’s Kentucky Power utility are being forced to subsidize transmission investments for other AEP utilities.
At issue are power lines planned by the AEP’s seven utilities in PJM Interconnection and how the costs are divided. Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and the PSC argue that Kentucky Power customers subsidized $66 million of power lines in other states from 2017 to 2022.
“For generations, out-of-state interests have targeted our mountain counties, leaving behind persistent and painful challenges,” Coleman said in a statement. “American Electric Power and its subsidiary have ignored our calls for change and taken resources out of this region to turn a profit in other states.”
The complaint filed Wednesday at FERC is the latest in a long line of disputes nationally over how the costs of transmission projects are allocated among utilities and states. Cost allocation debates have especially held up development of interstate and regional power lines, contributing to network congestion and slowing down the ability to connect new power plants.
