City of Fulton Selects FirstEnergy Solutions for Municipal Aggregation Program

FULTON, Ill. and AKRON, Ohio, May 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The City of Fulton, Illinois, has selected FirstEnergy Solutions (FES) to supply electric generation service to residents and small businesses in the community through July 2014.  As part of the agreement, residents and small businesses are expected to receive approximately $560,000 in electric generation savings over the term of the agreement.  In addition, FES will make a one-time grant of approximately $13,000, which can be used as the local officials see fit.  

City of Fulton Mayor Larry Russell said, "I compliment our City Council, City Administrator, City Attorney and consultants for working together, allowing us to become the first community in Illinois to take advantage of these savings, which will be even more beneficial during the upcoming peak usage summer months.  Through this unique program, FirstEnergy Solutions is helping the members of this community realize lower electric bills, without experiencing any change to the quality and reliability of their electric service."

"FirstEnergy Solutions is pleased to have this opportunity to help the residents and small businesses in Fulton save money on their electric bills and to provide funding for the community," said President of FirstEnergy Solutions Donny Schneider.  "Through similar aggregation programs in Ohio, FirstEnergy Solutions has been able to give much-needed support to more than 300 communities and provide millions of dollars in savings to those community members.  We look forward to serving Fulton and welcome the opportunity to work with more communities interested in learning how they can save money through municipal aggregation."

Through this program, residential customers will receive a low fixed price of 6.23 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) on electric generation, which is an estimated 20 percent savings off ComEd's current average generation rate.  Small businesses will receive a fixed price of 6.04 cents per kWh on electric generation, an estimated 21 percent off ComEd's current average generation rate.  

Under Illinois law, communities are able to form municipal aggregation buying groups to arrange for electricity on behalf of their citizens.  The municipal aggregator chooses a supplier for all of the members in its group.  Customers may opt out of the aggregation program and shop for a supplier or accept the standard rate offered by their local utility.  

ComEd will continue to provide the same level of electric service as well as read meters, send monthly billing statements and maintain service for residents participating in the municipal aggregation program.  

FirstEnergy Solutions, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE), provides competitive electric generation supply and other energy-related products and services to over one million customers, and is a licensed supplier in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan and Illinois.  To learn more about FirstEnergy Solutions' municipal aggregation programs, community officials can call FirstEnergy Solutions' Governmental Aggregation Program Manager Brenda Fargo at (330) 315-6898 or visit www.fes.com.

FirstEnergy is a diversified energy company dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies comprise the nation's largest investor-owned electric system.  Its diverse generating fleet features non-emitting nuclear, scrubbed baseload coal, natural gas, and pumped-storage hydro and other renewables, and has a total generating capacity of approximately 24,000 megawatts.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements based on information currently available to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. These statements include declarations regarding management's intents, beliefs and current expectations. These statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms "anticipate," "potential," "expect," "believe," "estimate" and similar words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially due to: the speed and nature of increased competition in the electric utility industry, the impact of the regulatory process on the pending matters in the various states in which we do business including, but not limited to, matters related to rates, the status of the PATH project in light of PJM's direction to suspend work on the project pending review of its planning process, its re-evaluation of the need for the project and the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of any related capital expenditures, business and regulatory impacts from ATSI's realignment into PJM Interconnection, L.L.C, economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins, changes in markets for energy services, changing energy and commodity market prices and availability, financial derivative reforms that could increase our liquidity needs and collateral costs, replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or inadequately hedged, the continued ability of FirstEnergy's regulated utilities to collect transition and other costs, operation and maintenance costs being higher than anticipated, other legislative and regulatory changes, and revised environmental requirements, including possible GHG emission, water intake and coal combustion residual regulations, the potential impacts of any laws, rules or regulations that ultimately replace CAIR and the effects of the EPA's recently released MACT proposal to establish certain mercury and other emission standards for electric generating units, the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures that may arise in connection with any NSR litigation or potential regulatory initiatives or rulemakings (including that such expenditures could result in our decision to shut down or idle certain generating units), adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes (including, but not limited to, the revocation of necessary licenses or operating permits) and oversight by the NRC, including as a result of the incident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, adverse legal decisions and outcomes related to Met-Ed's and Penelec's transmission service charge appeal at the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, the continuing availability of generating units and changes in their ability to operate at or near full capacity, the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards and energy efficiency mandates, changes in customers' demand for power, including but not limited to, changes resulting from the implementation of state and federal energy efficiency mandates, the ability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic goals, efforts, and our ability, to improve electric commodity margins and the impact of, among other factors, the increased cost of coal and coal transportation on such margins, the ability to experience growth in the distribution business, the changing market conditions that could affect the value of assets held in FirstEnergy's nuclear decommissioning trusts, pension trusts and other trust funds, and cause FirstEnergy to make additional contributions sooner, or in amounts that are larger than currently anticipated, the ability to access the public securities and other capital and credit markets in accordance with FirstEnergy's financing plan, the cost of such capital and overall condition of the capital and credit markets affecting FirstEnergy and its subsidiaries, changes in general economic conditions affecting FirstEnergy and its subsidiaries, interest rates and any actions taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect FirstEnergy's and its subsidiaries' access to financing or their costs and increase requirements to post additional collateral to support outstanding commodity positions, LOCs and other financial guarantees, the continuing uncertainty of the national and regional economy and its impact on the major industrial and commercial customers of FirstEnergy's subsidiaries, issues concerning the soundness of financial institutions and counterparties with which FirstEnergy and its subsidiaries do business, issues arising from the recently completed merger of FirstEnergy and Allegheny Energy, Inc. and the ongoing coordination of their combined operations including FirstEnergy's ability to maintain relationships with customers, employees or suppliers, as well as the ability to successfully integrate the businesses and realize cost savings and any other synergies and the risk that the credit ratings of the combined company or its subsidiaries may be different from what the companies expect, the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in FirstEnergy's and its applicable subsidiaries' SEC filings, and other similar factors. The foregoing review of factors should not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors, nor assess the impact of any such factor on FirstEnergy's business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. FirstEnergy expressly disclaims any current intention to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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