FirstEnergy Solutions To Provide 22 Ohio Communities With $7.4 Million in Grants, Long-Term Electric Generation Savings

AKRON, Ohio, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- FirstEnergy Solutions (FES), a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE), has signed agreements with 22 area communities that will provide $7.4 million in community grants through its innovative Powering Our Communities program that was announced in September. In addition, the program will provide residents and small businesses of those communities with guaranteed long-term electric generation savings.

"We are pleased that these communities have partnered with FES for savings and community funding. Many other eligible communities have responded favorably to our offer and are in the process of evaluating the proposal," says Arthur Yuan, vice president of Sales and Marketing at FES.

The Powering Our Communities program was made available to 50 communities in the Ohio Edison, Cleveland Electric Illuminating and Toledo Edison service areas that agree to purchase discounted electric generation supply from FES through governmental aggregation programs. Communities with governmental aggregation issues on the November ballot are also eligible, as well as communities where residents have already approved electric aggregation.

The community grants available through Powering Our Communities are designed to help local communities during this difficult recession. The funding can be used by city and township officials to help pay for, among other things, city services that have been affected by budget cuts. Powering Our Communities also locks in long-term discounted generation prices to residential and small commercial customers in these communities.

The discounts will be based on the Price to Compare, or the generation price customers would have been charged if they purchased electric generation service from their local electric utility. Eligible residential customers will receive 6 percent off the Price to Compare and small businesses will get up to a 4 percent discount for an additional six years. The majority of the communities already had governmental aggregation programs with FES as the electric generation supplier until 2012.

The level of funding to each community will be based on the number of customers who participate in the governmental aggregation program. FES currently serves more than 600,000 Ohio customers through governmental aggregation.

Communities are able to form governmental aggregation buying groups to arrange for electricity, natural gas, or both on behalf of their citizens. The government 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.

FES provides competitive electric generation supply and other energy-related products and services, and is a licensed supplier in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan and Illinois. To learn more about FirstEnergy Solutions' governmental aggregation programs and specifically Powering Our Communities, 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 headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Its subsidiaries and affiliates are involved in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, as well as energy management and other energy-related services. Its generation subsidiaries control more than 14,000 megawatts of capacity.

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 and legislative and regulatory changes affecting how generation rates will be determined following the expiration of existing rate plans in Pennsylvania, the impact of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio's regulatory process on the Ohio Companies associated with the distribution rate case, economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins, changes in markets for energy services, changing energy and commodity market prices and availability, replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or inadequately hedged, the continued ability of FirstEnergy's regulated utilities to collect transition and other charges or to recover increased transmission costs, maintenance costs being higher than anticipated, other legislative and regulatory changes, revised environmental requirements, including possible greenhouse gas emission regulations, the potential impacts of the U.S. Court of Appeals' July 11, 2008 decision requiring revisions to the Clean Air Interstate Rules and the scope of any laws, rules or regulations that may ultimately take their place, the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures needed to, among other things, implement the Air Quality Compliance Plan (including that such amounts could be higher than anticipated or that certain generating units may need to be shut down) or levels of emission reductions related to the Consent Decree resolving the New Source Review litigation or other similar potential regulatory initiatives or actions, adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes (including, but not limited to, the revocation of necessary licenses or operating permits and oversight) by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Metropolitan Edison Company's and Pennsylvania Electric Company's transmission service charge filings with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, the continuing availability of generating units and their ability to operate at or near full capacity, the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards, the ability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic goals (including employee workforce initiatives), the ability to improve electric commodity margins and 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 it to make additional contributions sooner, or in an amount that is larger than currently anticipated, the ability to access the public securities and other capital and credit markets in accordance with FirstEnergy's financing plan and the cost of such capital, changes in general economic conditions affecting the company, the state of the capital and credit markets affecting the company, interest rates and any actions taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect FirstEnergy's access to financing or its costs or increase its requirements to post additional collateral to support outstanding commodity positions, letters of credit and other financial guarantees, the continuing decline of the national and regional economy and its impact on the company's major industrial and commercial customers, issues concerning the soundness of financial institutions and counterparties with which FirstEnergy does business, and the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in its Securities and Exchange Commission 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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