Feb. 8, 2026, 6:01 a.m. ET
- Ohio renters are receiving unexpectedly high utility bills from submetering companies that resell electricity, water and more.
- Submetering companies operate in a regulatory gray area, leaving customers with fewer protections than those billed by public utilities.
- State lawmakers are considering new bills to regulate the submetering industry and establish consumer protections.
Andrea Feagin thought she did everything right before getting her own place.
She socked away as much money as she could. She put together a budget. And she found an apartment she could afford on her income.
But what she still never saw coming was a $493.35 utility bill during the first winter she lived on her own. Feagin’s electric bill claimed she used 2,206.77 kilowatt-hours from Jan. 15, 2025, through Feb. 15, 2025. That’s more than double the 899 kilowatt-hours an average American household uses a month, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
And it wasn’t the first eye-popping bill she’d received from Nationwide Energy Partners for her one-bedroom, 900-square-foot Brewery District apartment. For months, bills crept from around $100 up to $200 then $300 and $400 before peaking at nearly $500.
“I barely got by,” she said. “I had to dip into my savings almost every single month.”
One day, someone put a flier on Feagin’s door and other units encouraging residents to file a complaint with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office or the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
Feagin didn’t hesitate.
She was one of 13 people who filed complaints with the Ohio Attorney General in 2025 against Columbus-based Nationwide Energy Partners, a company that buys electric service from public providers like AEP Ohio and resells it to tenants in apartments and other communities. It’s unclear just how many complaints about submetering were filed with the state attorney general in 2025 but at least 555 complaints were filed with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, records obtained by The Dispatch show.
Nationwide Energy Partners and American Power & Light saw the most complaints filed with the PUCO last year.
It’s companies like those two that give the submetering industry a bad rap, said Fred Rice, a central Ohioan, owner of Spectrum Submetering and board chairman of industry trade group Utility Management and Conservation Association. One of the two Columbus-based submeterers, Rice said, was actually denied entry to the trade group for it’s practices — though he declined to say which one.
While a typical submetering company makes money from installing equipment, conducting readings and allocating usage based on submeters, or through a billing fee, Rice said others have taken advantage of a lack of regulation and passed the cost of equipment, power lines and transformers on to tenants in their monthly bills. If submetering companies were regulated like public utilities, the PUCO would need to give its approval before allowing them to pass on these charges to customers.
“They’re marking up the utilities, they’re making money on the spread and they’re charging high administrative fees that nobody else in the industry charges,” Rice said.
Columbus-based American Power & Light did not respond to a request to comment for this story. In a prepared statement, Nationwide Energy Partners told The Dispatch that since 2023 the state has only allowed it to bill residents the same or lower than the total bill for a similarly situated customer served by the public utility. The submetering company also said that residents can monitor their utility usage online, though Feagin questioned whether her meter reading was accurate to begin with since she always unplugs devices and turns off lights when she’s not using them.
And Feagin’s experience is part of a larger pattern of price-gouging that customers complained about.
Most complaints filed with the state bemoaned what customers believe were inflated energy bills while others reported that their electric or water had been cut off by a submetering company. But, consumers like Feagin have little recourse against the utility middlemen that have for years operated in a regulatory gray zone.
The PUCO does not have oversight authority of submetering companies since they are not considered public utilities. The loophole means submetered customers cannot shop for electricity, have no protection from having their electric heat turned off in the dead of winter and have no right to an income-based payment plan like Ohioans who are billed directly by a public utility.
And in some cases, submetering is a way for apartment complex owners to make more money off of tenants as some are part owners of the submetering companies that bill their renters, said Deputy Consumers’ Counsel Angela O’Brien. Nationwide Energy Partners, for example, was founded by the chief executive officer of Lifestyle Communities, an apartment owner with properties in downtown Columbus and several suburbs including Hilliard, New Albany, Gahanna and Dublin among other cities across the country.
Altogether, O’Brien said the practice and lack of rules put Ohio renters at a disadvantage and has created millions of “second-class utility customers.”
“Why should a utility consumer who lives in an apartment have less rights than someone who gets to be served by a PUCO-regulated utility,” O’Brien said. “They just shouldn’t. It’s not fair.”
How submetering has left some Ohioans ‘out of luck’
Ohio’s submetering debate is nothing new.
The original idea behind submetering was a “win for everyone” involved, Rice said.
Before the practice, landlords usually built utilities into a tenant’s rent. It meant someone living alone was likely paying the same flat rate for utilities as the unit next door that might have two or three residents, Rice said.
With submetering, landlords were able to bill tenants directly for only what they used and Rice said that in turn led tenants to conserve more energy and water, which is good for the environment.
But issues with submetering have been obvious for more than a decade, O’Brien said. Twelve years ago, The Dispatch reported that some utility middlemen were charging customers 5% to 40% more than they would pay to a regulated utility for the same service at the time.
Despite outraged tenants and news coverage, not much has changed, said O’Brien. Things may finally be coming to a head now though, she said.
“In the past we haven’t had the affordability issues we’re having now,” O’Brien said. “People aren’t going to tolerate it anymore. Something will have to happen one way or another.'”
The PUCO decided in 2023 that submetering companies were not public utilities under Ohio law and thus not subject to its jurisdiction. AEP Ohio appealed the PUCO’s decision to the Ohio Supreme Court, calling the commission’s ruling on utility middlemen “narrow and limited” and asking justices to overturn it.
The court has yet to render a decision.
In the meantime, two bills were introduced in the Ohio House of Representatives in 2025 that aim to define submetering and establish ground rules for the practice.
House Bill 265, sponsored by Rep. Tex Fischer, R-Boardman, and Rep. Sean Brennan, D-Parma, would define submetering companies as public utilities and give the PUCO the ability to regulate them as such. If it became law, the bill would ensure submetered customers would have the same billing transparency and protections as someone who is billed directly by a public utility.
“If you’re submetered, you’re basically out of luck,” Fischer told The Dispatch. “Hopefully we’re moving past that, but these (companies) have always operated in a completely unregulated gray area.”
House Bill 173, another piece of legislation aimed at defining submetering companies and establishing some regulation, has some support from advocates like O’Brein and the companies themselves like Nationwide Energy Partners.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. David Thomas, R-Jefferson, would exempt submetering companies from being regulated like public utilities but it would require such businesses to register with the PUCO, would create a complaint process and would prevent utility middlemen from charging a tenant more than the standard cost of service and fees.
Thomas told The Dispatch he’s hopeful the bill will move forward and become law later this year. He sees his bill as a “good balance” between protecting customers and allowing submetering to continue so that Ohio doesn’t lose any edge it has in economic development.
“This has been batted around for over a decade. I think my bill is the happy middle ground where we can all coalesce,” Thomas said. “We’re very, very close.”
‘Driving up the cost’: Why Columbus didn’t wait to regulate
While state lawmakers debate submetering reform, Columbus City Council member Christopher Wyche decided his constituents couldn’t wait for change.
In December, council passed a resolution to regulate submetering companies operating in Columbus.
The ordinance prohibits submetering companies from charging a tenant more than what it is charged by a utility provider and caps administrative fees at $8 per billing cycle. The city law states submetering companies cannot charge late fees that are more than what a utility provider is charging and cannot bill tenants for spaces primarily used by a landlord at an apartment complex.
Submetering companies in Columbus will also now be required to allow a customer to set up a payment plan for overdue bills, among other protections.
Failure to comply with Columbus’ ordinance can result in a $150 fine to a submetering company for each day it is in violation, the code states. Fines will be complaint-driven, though a spokesperson said council is still working on exactly how the city will enforce the law and will likely update the ordinance once that process is finalized.
The changes to city law became effective 30 days after it was signed into law by Mayor Andrew Ginther Dec. 9.
“It’s driving up the cost for everyday residents,” Wyche said. “We didn’t want to wait. We know residents are dealing with this today.”
While Rice acknowledged Columbus’ new ordinance will help curb some bad actors in the submetering business, he said the legislation was too broad. He fears submetering companies that haven’t taken advantage of clients will need to spend millions to adapt to it.
And he worries the city’s administrative fee cap of $8 will cause every submetering company to start charging the maximum allowed, even if they currently bill a lower fee. Rice’s company, for example, charges a $5 administrative fee for units it bills.
While submetering customers like Feagin appreciate that leaders are trying to improve things, the changes are too little, too late for her wallet.
After the first year in her Brewery District apartment, Feagin and her boyfriend Daquan Curry moved in together to try to save money on rent and utilities.
Although the two now live in a two-bedroom unit in the same complex, they’re puzzled by the fact that their utility bills have been slightly lower for a larger apartment. Even with two incomes though, the bills have still been difficult to cover at times, the couple said.
They’ve been forced to think strategically by planning to buy household necessities, such as toilet paper, around when their electric and water bill is due to Nationwide Energy Partners. The bills have forced Feagin and Curry to put off vacations they’d like to take together. And depleted savings mean they’ve held off on dreams of buying their first home some day.
The couple is sure about one thing though. When their lease is up, they plan to find a place to live where they won’t be submetered.
“I don’t think a lot of people know about it and so a lot of people keep falling victim to it,” Feagin said. “It’s insane.”
Dispatch investigative reporter Max Filby can be reached by email at mfilby@dispatch.com. Find him on X at the handle @MaxFilby or on Facebook at @ReporterMaxFilby.
date: 2026-02-09 03:44:00
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