COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 18, 2007 – AEP Ohio, an operating unit of American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), today joined several parties, including the Staff of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) and Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC), in filing a motion to withdraw its enhanced distribution service reliability plan.
 
The motion also requests that the PUCO direct the company to spend on vegetation management $10 million that the Commission ordered earmarked for service and reliability matters.  AEP Ohio will not recover the $10 million from customers.
 
“AEP Ohio already spends an average of $100 million annually on programs designed to maintain reliable service and reduce outages,” said AEP Ohio President and COO Kevin Walker. “We proposed an enhanced reliability plan last year with a goal of increasing the reliability of AEP Ohio’s system and reducing the frequency of outages, which can be particularly frustrating in today’s electricity dependent world.”
 
AEP Ohio’s enhanced reliability proposal, which was filed in October 2006, included an additional average annual expenditure of approximately $130 million over five years on vegetation management, equipment replacement, infrastructure upgrades and improved use of technology, to help reduce outages and improve overall service for AEP Ohio customers.
 
“Since filing the plan, we have been involved in discussions with the PUCO Staff, OCC and many other interested parties,” Walker said. “We were unable to reach agreement on how to proceed, so the parties supported withdrawal.
 
“Having done that, our commitment to maintaining our system and providing reliable service for our customers has not changed,” Walker added.  “We also are continuing the current work that we are doing to improve reliability.  We will continue working with the PUCO Staff, OCC and other interested parties to identify future opportunities to expand our current reliability program, with appropriate cost recovery, to improve our customers’ overall experience.” 
 
AEP Ohio provides electricity to nearly 1.5 million customers of major AEP subsidiaries Columbus Southern Power Company and Ohio Power Company in Ohio, and Wheeling Power Company in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. AEP Ohio is based in Gahanna, Ohio, and is a unit of American Electric Power.
 
American Electric Power is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined. AEP’s transmission system directly or indirectly serves about 10 percent of the electricity demand in the Eastern Interconnection, the interconnected transmission system that covers 38 eastern and central U.S. states and eastern Canada, and approximately 11 percent of the electricity demand in ERCOT, the transmission system that covers much of Texas. AEP’s utility units operate as AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana and east Texas). AEP’s headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio.