Ohio Consumers' Counsel v. Public Utilities Commission

{¶ 1} This case marks the third time that we have been called upon to consider challenges to orders of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (“commission” or “PUCO”) that adopted a Straight Fixed Variable (“SFV”) rate design. We previously upheld the PUCO’s approval of a modified SFV rate design for Duke Energy Ohio and Dominion East Ohio. Ohio Consumers’ Counsel v. Pub. Util. Comm., 125 Ohio St.3d 57, 2010-Ohio-134, 926 N.E.2d 261. In those cases, we held that the commission’s decisions to allow Duke and Dominion to abandon the traditional natural-gas rate design used over the past 30…