Ohio summer electric bills head toward $745 as Tiffin swelters in heat wave

Tiffin is in the grip of a dangerous heat wave this week, with mid-90s temperatures and heat-index values pushing conditions into warning territory before somewhat cooler weather arrives over the July Fourth weekend. And the electricity that powers the air conditioning is on track to cost Ohio households more this summer than last.

A summer cooling outlook from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association projects the typical Ohio household will spend about $745 on electricity from June through September, up from $691 a year ago — an increase of 7.8 percent. Nationally, the group projects summer electric bills will rise 10.5 percent to roughly $792, and it estimates that summer cooling costs have climbed nearly 40 percent since 2020.

Tiffin is served by AEP Ohio, the utility whose distribution rates and data-center policies have been reshaped by a series of decisions at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio over the past year. Other parts of Seneca County are served by different providers, including North Central Electric Cooperative and, in some areas, FirstEnergy utilities.

On Wednesday, April 1, the PUCO approved a settlement in AEP Ohio’s distribution rate case. The commission and the utility described the outcome as a net reduction: base distribution revenue would rise by $11 million — far below the $97 million AEP originally sought — while about $105 million in federal tax savings is returned to customers over 18 months, producing an overall revenue decrease of $58.7 million. AEP Ohio said the change would lower a typical residential bill by roughly $1 a month, and PUCO staff had earlier recommended a small decrease.

“The settlement we’re approving today focuses on utility affordability and ensuring that new data centers are responsible for the costs they impose on the grid, while providing the utility with the tools it needs to focus on system reliability,” PUCO Chair Jenifer French said.

Consumer and environmental groups that intervened in the case say the reduction is temporary. The Ohio Environmental Council, Columbus Stand Up, Save Ohio Parks and the Buckeye Environmental Network argue that once the tax credit expires, and if AEP moves to collect the full amount the settlement allows, residential rates would rise — by as much as $4.38 a month by the end of 2026 and toward $10.28 a month by 2028.

“While AEP Ohio is going to claim this rate change could result in a bill decrease for customers, that reduction is temporary,” said Columbus City Councilmember Christopher Wyche, who chairs the council’s Public Utilities and Sustainability Committee. “Number games may work for talking points, but they won’t do much for consumers who are balancing their budgets at the kitchen table.”

Maureen Willis, who heads the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, said consumers “deserve a direct answer” to whether their bills are going up, adding that “every approved dollar comes directly from consumers’ pockets.”

The case was resolved through a settlement, and AEP Ohio has not been accused of wrongdoing; the dispute centers on how the settlement’s temporary credits and future spending caps will net out on customer bills. PUCO staff, for their part, disputed the framing of an affordability crisis, calling the Consumers’ Counsel’s arguments on that point “misleading” because household costs are rising across many categories of spending.

A separate driver sits on a different line of the bill. On March 18, two weeks before the distribution order, the PUCO approved AEP Ohio’s Basic Transmission Cost Rider, the charge that covers the high-voltage lines moving bulk power across the state. AEP Ohio said the update would raise the transmission portion of a typical 1,000-kWh residential bill by about $7.90 a month, but that the increase would be largely offset by a roughly $7.16 decrease in generation costs and a $0.52 decrease in distribution — a net increase of about $0.22 a month for the average customer on its standard service offer.

That offset applies to customers on AEP Ohio’s standard service offer. Customers who buy generation through a competitive retail electric supplier or governmental aggregation may not see the same generation-cost offset, meaning their net bill impact could differ. The Ohio Manufacturers’ Association Energy Group has challenged AEP’s underlying load forecasts, arguing in filings that the utility overstated future demand, including an increase of more than 3 gigawatts in what it reported to the regional grid operator.

Much of that projected demand traces to data centers. In July 2025, the PUCO ordered AEP Ohio to create a tariff specific to large data centers, requiring new or expanded facilities of 25 megawatts or more to pay for at least 85 percent of the capacity they reserve — even if they use less — for up to 12 years. The commission said the structure is meant to keep the cost of new infrastructure from shifting onto residential and small-business customers. The same order lifted a moratorium AEP had placed on new data-center connections in central Ohio. In its summer outlook, NEADA listed data-center demand among the factors pushing retail electricity prices up faster than inflation.

Ohio customers are also paying to keep older plants running. On April 29, the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously upheld charges AEP Ohio bills to customers for its share of the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation, which operates two 1950s-era coal plants, rejecting a challenge that consumers had overpaid $74.5 million for the plants’ money-losing years in 2018 and 2019.

The rising costs arrive as Ohio offers comparatively limited summer relief. According to NEADA, the state has no broad summer shut-off protection, even as it maintains protections against winter disconnections. Ohio does operate a Home Energy Assistance Summer Crisis Program for eligible households, but the program is income-limited and does not amount to a statewide summer moratorium on disconnections. Heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, the NEADA report notes, citing federal data.

Ohioans can compare generation suppliers through the PUCO’s Energy Choice tool, though the delivery charges driven by the rate and transmission decisions above do not change when a customer switches supplier.