The May 13 order by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in support of OGE’s purchase of the AES Shady Point coal-fired plant near Poteau is being appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
A group called Oklahoma Energy Results filed an appeal over the acquisition of the 360-megawatt plant. Oklahoma Gas and Electric purchased AES Shady Point and a second power plant in a $53 million deal. The second plant was the 146-megawatt natural gas-fired combined cycle plant in west Oklahoma City.
Oklahoma Energy Results challenged the competitive bidding process used by OGE to select the two plants it acquired. The group contends the utility sought preapproval for the plans “without a fair and compliant determination of the effect of approval on ratepayers.”
The Supreme Court appeal filing claimed OGE picked the selected projects based on “biased and discriminatory criteria that deliberately exclused reasonable, potential lower cost alternatives from consideration.”
Under the purchase plan approved by the Corporation Commission, OGE will not be allowed to recover its costs from acquiring the two plans until a pending rate case before the regulators is settled.
