The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has approved a settlement plan authorizing Jersey Central Power and Light Co. to recover up to $149 million in purchased power contract buyout costs.
Settlement of the longstanding, buyout-recovery dispute was part of a "global" agreement involving a number of cost items:
• potential recovery of stranded costs;
• accelerated depreciation of nuclear plant assets;
• slower depreciation of transmission and distribution facilities;
• recovery of costs for demand-side management and coal tar cleanup; and
• offsetting rate adjustments to address an alleged "double recovery" of purchased power capacity costs by the utility.
Overall, the agreement will produce a rate decrease of $5 million annually.