The bankruptcy of a fleet of FirstEnergy Corp. nuclear and fossil fuel plants won’t stop their quest for U.S. government assistance as they battle gas-fired and renewable competitors for survival, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Plunging electricity prices, high debt levels and an “ongoing loss of financial support” from the FirstEnergy parent company drove several power-generation subsidiaries into bankruptcy, their attorney Scott Alberino said yesterday in their debut appearance since filing for chapter 11. Despite the bankruptcy, Alberino said that the lead debtor FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES) would continue pressing government regulators to take emergency action favoring coal- and nuclear-power plants over other energy sources, a high-stakes test of which type of fuel should power the U.S. electric grid. The request is forcing the U.S. Department of Energy to decide whether the country’s largest grid operator should dispatch energy from FES plants effectively ahead of competing gas-fired and renewable assets.
