FirstEnergy To Deactivate Units At Two Ohio Power Plants

(RTTNews) - FirstEnergy Corp. (FE) said that its FirstEnergy Solutions subsidiary will make operational changes to coal-fired units at two of its Ohio plants in response to challenging market conditions.

The company plans to sell or deactivate the 136-megawatt (MW) Bay Shore Unit 1 in Oregon, Ohio, by October 2020. In addition, Units 1-4 of the company's seven-unit W.H. Sammis Plant in Stratton, Ohio - collectively representing 720 MW of capacity - will be retired in May 2020. Units 5-7 will continue to provide 1,490 MW of reliable baseload generation.

In 2015, Bay Shore Unit 1 and Sammis Units 1-4 contributed about four percent of the electricity produced by the company's generating plants. FirstEnergy does not intend to offer these units into the PJM capacity auction for the 2020-2021 timeframe.

No job reductions are expected at either plant. FirstEnergy will work with any potential buyer to discuss continued employment for the 78 employees at Bay Shore, or if the plant is deactivated, provide employees with job opportunities at other FirstEnergy facilities. There are 368 employees at Sammis.