After a series of meetings spanning multiple weeks, Oklahoma Corporation Commissioners voted Thursday to deny Oklahoma Gas and Electric’s request to use a cost-recovery measure called “construction work in progress,” or CWIP.
The state’s largest utility company sought to use the procedure to help finance the construction of two new natural gas turbines at its Horseshoe Lake Power Plant in eastern Oklahoma County. While OG&E received preapproval to build them and eventually charge customers for the cost, regulators specifically denied the use of CWIP.
Commissioners deliberated whether they were obligated to approve the mechanism under a new law requiring the Corporation Commission to allow CWIP for new or expanded natural gas infrastructure. But the law wasn’t applicable in this case, the regulators said, because OG&E filed its application before Senate Bill 998 went into effect…