Sep. 14--Any prospects have vanished that metro Toledo homeowners and renters will be able to find an alternative next year to Toledo Edison's second-highest electric rates in the state.

No other electric suppliers are selling power in the FirstEnergy Corp. territory, and the current bulk-buying groups will be extinct by the end of the year.

A key reason is that state regulators have approved a rate plan for FirstEnergy that makes it difficult for other electric suppliers to compete, experts say.

"When you look at how their plan is implemented, it makes it impractical for us to continue," said spokesman Mike Welch of WPS Energy Services Inc., a Green Bay, Wis., firm that was supplying lower-cost electricity to nearly 3,000 customers locally but which is not renewing the contracts expiring in three months.

The Northwest Ohio Aggregration Coalition, which represents a group of 120,000 residential customers in the area, offered a slight break on the electric rate of FirstEnergy this year, but has found no supplier for next year.

Mark Frye, president of Palmer Energy Co. in Toledo and a consultant to the coalition, said the bulk-buying group was unable to find any takers, given the FirstEnergy rate plan. "We couldn't get the economics there," he said, hopeful of finding an alternate supplier for 2007 and 2008.

But for now, all area customers will revert to Toledo Edison, owned by FirstEnergy of Akron.

Toledo Edison, the predominant power supplier in northwest Ohio, has the highest commercial rates in the state and is second only to another FirstEnergy unit for residential customers, and it traditionally has been a leader.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved a rate plan this year that freezes FirstEnergy's rates for 2006 through 2008, but permits the firm to collect added costs for the coal and fuel for its power plants.

It has a pending request to collect $93 million in such charges next year, but last week struck a deal with some northern Ohio mayors to delay collecting that fee until 2009. The change must be approved by the commission.

FirstEnergy and state regulators tout the fact that electric rates will be frozen, and dismiss complaints about lack of competition.

The utility said it has done its part to foster competition, including offering in the past sizable quantities of low-cost power wholesale to other suppliers who in turn used it to undercut Toledo Edison's rate.

That spurred interest four and five years ago when deregulation of the electric industry was in its infancy in Ohio, but now, no such low-cost power is being offered and competitors say FirstEnergy has an unfair advantage by being able to collect for higher fuel charges.

"The market has to succeed and fail based on what the merits are," said Mark Durbin, a FirstEnergy spokesman. "We can't subsidize the market as it goes forward."

Spokesman Shana Eiselstein said the PUCO was pleased to be able to freeze northwest Ohio rates for three years and hopes to find competitors through an upcoming auction. How well it will do, however, is uncertain. An auction last year failed because it was asking suppliers to bid on what they would sell power for a year later, and experts said that time frame scared away interest.

The regulators, the spokesman said, have no plan to require the utility to offer low-cost electricity again.

A recent commission survey shows Toledo Edison residential customers have the highest rates next to a FirstEnergy unit in Cleveland, with homeowners and renters locally paying 12 cents a kilowatt hour. The Cleveland unit charges 13 cents; lowest in the state are Canton and Cincinnati residents, at 8 cents.

Businesses locally pay 13 cents a kilowatt hour, the highest in the state.

The state's consumer watchdog, Ohio Consumers' Counsel, has objected to FirstEnergy's approved rate plan, contesting some elements in court, such as the company's ability to continuing collecting a fee from customers to help it pay off its debt. There is a hearing Sept. 28 before the Ohio Supreme Court on the issue.