Item 1. BUSINESS

The Companies

FE and its subsidiaries are principally involved in the transmission, distribution, and generation of electricity. FirstEnergy’s ten utility operating companies comprise one of the nation’s largest investor-owned electric systems, based on serving over six million customers in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. FirstEnergy’s transmission operations include over 24,000 miles of transmission lines and two regional transmission operation centers. AGC and MP control 3,580 MWs of total capacity.

FirstEnergy’s revenues are primarily derived from electric service provided by the Utilities and Transmission Companies.

Regulated Utility Operating Subsidiaries

The Utilities’ combined service areas encompass approximately 65,000 square miles in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York. The areas they serve have a combined population of approximately 13.5 million.

OE owns property and does business as an electric public utility in Ohio. OE engages in the distribution and sale of electric energy to communities in a 7,000 square mile area of central and northeastern Ohio. The area it serves has a population of approximately 2.3 million.

OE owns all of Penn’s outstanding common stock. Penn owns property and does business as an electric public utility in Pennsylvania. Penn furnishes electric service to communities in 1,100 square miles of western Pennsylvania. The area it serves has a population of approximately 0.4 million.

CEI does business as an electric public utility in Ohio. CEI engages in the distribution and sale of electric energy in an area of 1,600 square miles in northeastern Ohio. The area it serves has a population of approximately 1.7 million.

TE does business as an electric public utility in Ohio. TE engages in the distribution and sale of electric energy in an area of 2,300 square miles in northwestern Ohio. The area it serves has a population of approximately 0.7 million.

JCP&L owns property and does business as an electric public utility in New Jersey. JCP&L provides transmission and distribution services in 3,200 square miles of northern, western, and east central New Jersey. The area it serves has a population of approximately 2.7 million.

ME owns property and does business as an electric public utility in Pennsylvania. ME provides distribution services in 3,300 square miles of eastern and south central Pennsylvania. The area it serves has a population of approximately 1.3 million.

PN owns property and does business as an electric public utility in Pennsylvania. PN provides distribution services in 17,600 square miles of western, northern, and south central Pennsylvania. The area PN serves has a population of approximately 1.2 million. Also, PN, as lessee of the property of its subsidiary, the Waverly Electric Light & Power Company, serves approximately 4,000 customers in the Waverly, New York vicinity. On February 10, 2021, PN entered into an agreement to transfer its customers and the related assets in Waverly, New York to Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative; the completion of such transfer is subject to several closing conditions including regulatory approval, but is expected to have an immaterial impact to FirstEnergy's financial statements.

PE owns property and does business as an electric public utility in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. PE provides transmission and distribution services in portions of Maryland and West Virginia and provides transmission services in Virginia in an area totaling approximately 5,500 square miles. The area it serves has a population of approximately 0.9 million.

MP owns property and does business as an electric public utility in West Virginia. MP provides generation, transmission, and distribution services in 13,000 square miles of northern West Virginia. The area it serves has a population of approximately 0.8 million. MP is contractually obligated to provide power to PE to meet its load obligations in West Virginia. MP owns or contractually controls 3,580 MWs of generation capacity that is supplied to its electric utility business, including a 16.25% undivided interest in the Bath County pumped-storage hydroelectric generation facility in Virginia (487 MWs) through its wholly owned subsidiary AGC.

WP owns property and does business as an electric public utility in Pennsylvania. WP provides transmission and distribution services in 10,400 square miles of southwestern, south-central, and northern Pennsylvania. The area it serves has a population of approximately 1.5 million.

Regulated Transmission Operating Subsidiaries

ATSI owns high-voltage transmission facilities in PJM, which consist of approximately 7,900 circuit miles of transmission lines with nominal voltages of 345 kV, 138 kV and 69 kV in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

TrAIL owns high-voltage transmission facilities in PJM, which consists of approximately 260 circuit miles of transmission lines, including a 500 kV transmission line extending approximately 150 miles from southwestern Pennsylvania through West Virginia to a point of interconnection with VEPCO in northern Virginia.

MAIT owns high-voltage transmission facilities in PJM, which consist of approximately 4,300 circuit miles of transmission lines with nominal voltages of 500 kV, 345 kV, 230 kV, 138 kV, 115 kV, 69 kV and 46 kV in Pennsylvania.

KATCo was formed to accommodate new transmission construction in the WP, MP and PE footprint and currently does not own or operate any transmission assets.

Service Company

FESC provides legal, financial, and other corporate support services at cost, in accordance with its cost allocation manual, to affiliated FirstEnergy companies.

Operating Segments

FirstEnergy's reportable operating segments are comprised of the Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission segments.

The Regulated Distribution segment distributes electricity through FirstEnergy’s ten utility operating companies, serving approximately six million customers within 65,000 square miles of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, and purchases power for its POLR, SOS, SSO and default service requirements in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. This segment also controls 3,580 MWs of regulated electric generation capacity located primarily in West Virginia and Virginia. The segment's results reflect the costs of securing and delivering electric generation from transmission facilities to customers, including the deferral and amortization of certain related costs.

The Regulated Transmission segment provides transmission infrastructure owned and operated by the Transmission Companies and certain of FirstEnergy's utilities (JCP&L, MP, PE and WP) to transmit electricity from generation sources to distribution facilities. The segment's revenues are primarily derived from forward-looking formula rates. Under forward-looking formula rates, the revenue requirement is updated annually based on a projected rate base and projected costs, which is subject to an annual true-up based on actual rate base and costs. The segment's results also reflect the net transmission expenses related to the delivery of electricity on FirstEnergy's transmission facilities. On November 6, 2021, FirstEnergy, along with FET, entered into the FET P&SA, with Brookfield and Brookfield Guarantors pursuant to which FET agreed to issue and sell to Brookfield at the closing, and Brookfield agreed to purchase from FET, certain newly issued membership interests of FET, such that Brookfield will own 19.9% of the issued and outstanding membership interests of FET, for a purchase price of $2.375 billion. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval from the FERC and review by the CFIUS.

Corporate/Other reflects corporate support and other costs not charged or attributable to the Utilities or Transmission Companies, including FE's retained Pension and OPEB assets and liabilities of the FES Debtors, interest expense on FE’s holding company debt and other businesses that do not constitute an operating segment. Additionally, reconciling adjustments for the elimination of inter-segment transactions are included in Corporate/Other. As of December 31, 2021, 67 MWs of electric generating capacity, representing AE Supply's OVEC capacity entitlement, is included in Corporate/Other. As of December 31, 2021, Corporate/Other had approximately $7.9 billion of FE holding company debt.

Utility Regulation

Regulatory Accounting

FirstEnergy accounts for the effects of regulation through the application of regulatory accounting to the Utilities and the Transmission Companies since their rates are established by a third-party regulator with the authority to set rates that bind customers, are cost-based and can be charged to and collected from customers.

The Utilities and the Transmission Companies recognize, as regulatory assets and regulatory liabilities, costs which FERC and the various state utility commissions, as applicable, have authorized for recovery from or return to customers in future periods or for which authorization is probable. Without the probability of such authorization, costs currently recorded as regulatory assets and regulatory liabilities would have been charged or credited to income as incurred. All regulatory assets and liabilities are expected to be recovered from or returned to customers. Based on current ratemaking procedures, the Utilities and the Transmission Companies continue to collect cost-based rates for their transmission and distribution services; accordingly, it is appropriate that the Utilities and the Transmission Companies continue the application of regulatory accounting to those operations. Regulatory accounting is applied only to the parts of the business that meet the above criteria. If a portion of the business applying regulatory accounting no longer meets those requirements, previously recorded regulatory assets and liabilities are removed from the balance sheet in accordance with GAAP.

State Regulation

The following table summarizes the allowed ROE and the aggregate actual ROE of the Utilities by state for the year ended December 31, 2021, as determined for regulatory purposes:

State						Allowed ROE						Actual ROE**(1)**
Maryland						9.65%						9.7%
New Jersey						9.6%(3)						8.6%
Ohio						10.5%						13.8%
Pennsylvania						Settled(2)						10.1%
West Virginia						Settled(2)						10.2%

(1) Actual ROE is based on methodology used in last distribution rate case and/or quarterly earnings reports, as applicable. Rate base is for distribution assets only (except West Virginia) and reflects the actual capital structure for Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland, and the allowed capital structure for Ohio. Actual ROEs reflect actual revenue (not weather normalized) and historical results should not be relied upon to estimate the outcome of future rate cases as regulatory assumptions may vary.

(2) Commission-approved settlement agreements did not disclose ROE rates.

(3) On October 28, 2020, the NJBPU approved JCP&L's distribution rate case settlement with an allowed ROE of 9.6%. Rates were effective for customers on November 1, 2021.

See "Outlook - State Regulation" in Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" for additional information and discussion.

Federal Regulation

See "Outlook - FERC Regulatory Matters" in Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" for additional information and discussion.

Environmental Matters

See "Outlook - Environmental Matters" in Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" for additional information and discussion.

Capital Requirements

FirstEnergy’s business is capital intensive, requiring significant resources to fund operating expenses, construction and other investment expenditures, scheduled debt maturities and interest payments, dividend payments, and potential contributions to its pension plan. See "Capital Resources and Liquidity" in Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" for additional information and discussion.

Supply Plan

Supply Chain

FirstEnergy has experienced supply chain challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lead times have increased across numerous material categories, with some as much as doubling from previous times. Some key suppliers have struggled with labor shortages and raw material availability, which along with inflationary pressure, have increased the costs of certain materials, equipment and contractors. FirstEnergy continues to monitor supply chain risk as it anticipates these challenges continuing into 2022 and is mitigating these risks by:

• Establishing a cross-functional team to forecast potential impacts to operations and programs;

• Expanding supply base to increase resiliency;

• Enhancing the demand management and material reservation process;

• Evaluating substitute products, reserving production capacity, and buying ahead in targeted categories; and

• Staying updated by participating in discussions with other utilities through EEI, which has a long history of mutual assistance in the electric utility industry.

Default Service

Certain of the Utilities have default service obligations to provide power to non-shopping customers who have elected to continue to receive service under regulated retail tariffs. The volume of these sales can vary depending on the level of shopping that occurs and these default service plans vary by state and by service territory. JCP&L’s default service, or BGS supply, is secured through a statewide competitive procurement process approved by the NJBPU. Default service for the Ohio Companies, Pennsylvania Companies and PE's Maryland jurisdiction are provided through a competitive procurement process approved by the PUCO (under ESP IV), PPUC (under the DSP) and MDPSC (under the SOS), respectively. If any supplier fails to deliver

power to any one of those Utilities’ service areas, the Utility serving that area may need to procure the required power in the market in their role as the default LSE. West Virginia electric generation continues to be regulated by the WVPSC.

Fuel Supply

MP currently has coal contracts with various terms to purchase approximately 7.9 million tons of coal for the year 2022, which fulfills its forecasted 2022 coal requirements. This contracted coal is produced primarily from mines located in Pennsylvania, Illinois and West Virginia. The contracts expire at various times through 2025. See "Outlook - Environmental Matters" in Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" for additional information pertaining to the impact of increased environmental regulations on coal supply.

System Demand

The maximum hourly demand for each of the Utilities was:

System Demand						2021												2020												2019
						(in MWs)
CEI						4,055												4,253												4,188
JCP&L						6,170												5,902												6,056
ME						3,072												2,976												2,974
MP						2,158												2,114												2,121
OE						5,504												5,598												5,494
PE						2,924												2,905												3,609
Penn						971												889												946
PN						2,898												2,908												3,020
TE						2,190												2,265												2,787
WP						3,940												3,827												4,012

Regional Reliability

All of FirstEnergy's facilities are located within PJM and operate under the reliability oversight of a regional entity known as RFC. This regional entity operates under the oversight of NERC in accordance with a delegation agreement approved by FERC.

Competition

Within FirstEnergy’s Regulated Distribution segment, generally there is no competition for electric distribution service in the Utilities’ respective service territories in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and New York. Additionally, there has traditionally been no competition for transmission service in PJM. However, pursuant to FERC’s Order No. 1000 and subject to state and local siting and permitting approvals, non-incumbent developers now can compete for certain PJM transmission projects in the service territories of FirstEnergy’s Regulated Transmission segment. This could result in additional competition to build transmission facilities in the Regulated Transmission segment’s service territories while also allowing the Regulated Transmission segment the opportunity to seek to build facilities in non-incumbent service territories.

Seasonality

The sale of electric power is generally a seasonal business, and weather patterns can have a material impact on FirstEnergy’s Regulated Distribution segment operating results. Demand for electricity in our service territories historically peaks during the summer and winter months. Accordingly, FirstEnergy’s annual results of operations and liquidity position may depend disproportionately on its operating performance during the summer and winter. Mild weather conditions may result in lower power sales and consequently lower earnings.

Human Capital

FirstEnergy focuses on a number of human capital resources, measures, and objectives in managing its business, including: safety, diversity, equity and inclusion, employee development, and compensation and benefits. Collectively, these focus areas may be material to understanding its business under certain circumstances.

Employees and Collective Bargaining Agreements

As of December 31, 2021, FirstEnergy had 12,395 employees, all of whom were located in the United States as follows:

			Total Employees						Bargaining Unit Employees
FESC			4,895						767
JCP&L			1,318						1,044
OE			1,091						739
MP			1,085						753
CEI			858						589
PN			746						493
WP			723						489
ME			632						471
PE			518						336
TE			338						255
Penn			191						133
Total			12,395						6,069

As of December 31, 2021, the IBEW, the UWUA and the OPEIU unions collectively represented approximately half of FirstEnergy’s employees. There are 15 CBAs between FirstEnergy’s subsidiaries and its unions, which have three, four or five- year terms. In 2021, FirstEnergy’s subsidiaries reached new agreements with 4 IBEW locals, covering 1,960 employees, and 1 UWA local, covering 660 employees.

Safety

Safety is a core value of FirstEnergy. FirstEnergy employees have the power and responsibility to keep each other safe and eliminate life-changing events, which are injuries that have life-changing impacts or fatal results. Safety metrics, such as injuries that result in days away or restricted time and life-changing events, are regularly monitored, internally reported, and are included in our annual incentive compensation program to reinforce that a safe work environment is crucial to FirstEnergy’s success.

FirstEnergy continues to shift its focus from achieving low OSHA rates to proactively identifying and mitigating life-changing event exposure. This shift in focus strengthens FirstEnergy’s safety-first culture by aligning our leadership around the same goal and driving safer decisions from an engaged workforce who puts safety first. To support that shift, FirstEnergy continues to embed its "Leading with Safety" learnings and experiences obtained during its 2020 and 2021 Safety Transformation. FirstEnergy continues to enhance and reinforce leader and employee safety training and exposure control concepts to improve job site exposure identification, communication and mitigation to prevent life changing events. Further, FirstEnergy continues to expand its “Leading with Safety” experiences with its employees to achieve excellence in personal, contractor and public safety.

Additionally, FirstEnergy’s employees’ well-being is essential to its core value of safety. FirstEnergy is taking a well-informed, decisive and measured response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as recommended by medical experts, to protect the health and safety of our employees and the public, while also continuing to serve our customers. FirstEnergy continues to provide flexibility for approximately 7,000 of its 12,400 employees to work from home. Pandemic safety and cleaning protocols were implemented for those workers who have continued to report to a FirstEnergy work location during this public health emergency, ensuring FirstEnergy employees can report directly to job sites and work with the same small group of employees every day. FirstEnergy developed a COVID-19 medical screening process under which a medical staff consisting of nurses, doctors and non-medical intake teams were assembled to manage COVID-19 related exposures, illnesses and quarantines; perform contact tracing; and ultimately safely return employees to work. FirstEnergy continues to comply with Federal laws and state health directives as they emerge and adjusts its procedures as needed to continue to keep its employees safe.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Diversity, equity and inclusion is a core value, as well as a corporate objective because a diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment delivers better service to customers, strong operational performance, innovation, and a safe, rewarding work experience for employees. FirstEnergy is focused on building a diverse workforce for the future, advancing a culture of equity, inclusion and belonging, and enhancing our diversity focus with our customers, in our communities and with our suppliers.

Affirmative steps taken at FirstEnergy to promote the core value of diversity, equity and inclusion include:

• FirstEnergy sponsors an executive diversity, equity and inclusion council consisting of senior management and other leaders across the company;

• Holding an annual “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Employee Survey” to capture employees’ perspectives on FirstEnergy’s efforts in this area, and where the results are discussed with employees in order to drive initiatives and action plans for improvement. This includes establishing:

◦a cross-functional working group to oversee the development and implementation of diversity, equity and inclusion action plans company-wide;

◦additional teams of employees embedded throughout FirstEnergy to implement local actions supporting diversity, equity and inclusion;

• FirstEnergy’s employees have established multiple employee business resource groups, known as "EBRGs," to further support diversity, equity and inclusion objectives through networking, mentoring, coaching, recruiting, development and community outreach;

• Employees are provided ongoing training and education on a variety of diversity, equity and inclusion topics;

• Enhanced transparency of diversity, equity and inclusion data, talent processes and measurement of progress;

• FirstEnergy has enhanced the recruiting processes to increase the number of diverse candidates considered for open positions and expand the diversity of teams interviewing those candidates. These enhancements include:

◦expanded relationship building with key diverse professional organizations, colleges and universities;

◦a more strategic approach to proactive talent sourcing that ensures increased diversity of candidate slates presented to hiring managers;

◦expanded diversity of teams interviewing those candidates.

• Increase leadership accountability by including diversity, equity and inclusion metrics in FirstEnergy’s annual incentive compensation program.

Employee Development

FirstEnergy’s employees are empowered to take ownership of their careers with increased openness into FirstEnergy’s internal and external hiring process and greater availability of tools and processes that support career management, talent reviews, succession planning and leadership selection. FirstEnergy is committed to preparing its high-performing workforce for the future and helping employees reach their full potential. That means developing employee skills and competencies and preparing emerging and experienced leaders for future management responsibilities.

Understanding FirstEnergy’s rapidly changing industry and strategy is key to employees’ ability to support FirstEnergy’s mission and meet its customers’ evolving needs. Key FirstEnergy development programs include:

• a mentoring program;

• "Discover FE," which is designed to broaden and deepen knowledge of FirstEnergy and the electric utility industry generally;

• new supervisor and manager program;

• experienced leader program;

• aspiring leader program;

• external partnership with the Center for Creative Leadership for senior and executive leadership development,

• "Educate to Elevate," which provides access to post-secondary education and a path to an Associate’s and Bachelor’s degrees for employees; and

• Power Systems Institute, an award-winning program for recruiting and developing the next generation of highly trained, dedicated and motivated line and substation workers.

Compensation and Benefits

FirstEnergy’s total rewards program is designed to attract, motivate, retain and reward employees for their role in the success of FirstEnergy. The base pay program is designed to provide individual base pay levels that balance an employee’s value to FirstEnergy with comparable jobs at peer companies. FirstEnergy is committed to ensuring that our internal policies and processes support pay equity, which was confirmed in a third-party review of our practices in 2019. The annual incentive compensation program is designed to reward the achievement of near-term corporate and business unit objectives. Additionally, FirstEnergy’s long-term incentive compensation program is designed to reward eligible executives for FirstEnergy’s achievement of longer-term goals intended to drive shareholder value and growth. In addition to base pay and incentive compensation plans, FirstEnergy offers a comprehensive benefits program, including a 401(k) Savings Plan and a defined benefit Pension Plan.

Information About Our Executive Officers (as of February 16, 2022)

Name						Age						Positions Held During Past Five Years						Dates
John W. Somerhalder II						66						Vice Chair and Executive Director (A)						2021-Present
												CenterPoint Energy Inc, Interim President & Chief Executive Officer						2020
												Colonial Pipeline Co, Interim President & Chief Executive Officer						2017
S. E. Strah						58						President and Chief Executive Officer (A) (B)						2021-Present
												President and Acting Chief Executive Officer (A) (B)						2020-2021
												Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (A) (B) (C) (E)						2018-2020
												President (D)						2017-2018
												President (C) (E)						*-2018
												Senior Vice President & President, FirstEnergy Utilities (B)						*-2018
S. L. Belcher						53						Senior Vice President, Operations (B)						2021-Present
												President (C) (E)						2018-Present
												Senior Vice President and President, FirstEnergy Utilities (B)						2018-2021
												President and Chief Nuclear Officer (G)						*-2018
												President, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (B)						*-2017
H. Park						60						Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer (A)						2021-Present
												Senior Vice President and General Counsel (C) (D) (E)						2021-Present
												LimNexus, Partner and General Counsel						2019-2021
												Latham & Watkins, Of Counsel						2017-2019
												PG&E Corporation, Senior Vice President and Special Counsel to Chairman						2017
												PG&E Corporation, Senior Vice President and General Counsel						*-2017
K. Jon Taylor						48						Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Strategy (A) (B)						2021-Present
												Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (C) (E)						2020-Present
												Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (A) (B)						2020-2021
												Vice President, Utility Operations (B)						2019-2020
												President (D)						2019-2020
												President, Ohio Operations (B)						2018-2019
												Vice President (C)						2018-2019
												Vice President and Controller (C) (E)						*-2018
												Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer (A) (B)						*-2018
												Vice President and Controller (D) (G)						*-2017
J. J. Lisowski						40						Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer (A) (B)						2018-Present
												Vice President and Controller (C) (E)						2018-Present
												Controller and Treasurer (G)						2017-2018
												Controller and Treasurer (F)						*-2018
												Assistant Controller (B) (C) (D) (E) (G)						*-2017
C. L. Walker						56						Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer (B)						2019-Present
												Vice President, Human Resources (B)						2018-2019
												Executive Director, Talent Management (B)						*-2018

* Indicates position held at least since January 1, 2017
(A) Denotes position held at FE
(B) Denotes position held at FESC
(C) Denotes position held at the Ohio Companies, the Pennsylvania Companies, MP, PE, FET, KATCo, TrAIL and ATSI
(D) Denotes position held at AGC
(E) Denotes position held at MAIT
(F) Denotes position held at FES and FG
(G) Denotes position held at FENOC

FirstEnergy Website and Other Social Media Sites and Applications

FirstEnergy's Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, amendments to those reports, and all other documents filed with or furnished to the SEC pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act are made available free of charge on or through the "Investors" page of FirstEnergy’s website at www.firstenergycorp.com. These documents are also available to the public from commercial document retrieval services and the website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov.

These SEC filings are posted on the website as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. Additionally, FirstEnergy routinely posts additional important information, including press releases, investor presentations, investor factbooks and notices of upcoming events under the "Investors" section of FirstEnergy’s website and recognizes FirstEnergy’s website as a channel of distribution to reach public investors and as a means of disclosing material non-public information for complying with disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Investors may be notified of postings to the website by signing up for email alerts and RSS feeds on the "Investors" page of FirstEnergy's website. FirstEnergy also uses Twitter® and Facebook® as additional channels of distribution to reach public investors and as a supplemental means of

disclosing material non-public information for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Information contained on FirstEnergy’s website, Twitter® handle or Facebook® page, and any corresponding applications of those sites, shall not be deemed incorporated into, or to be part of, this report.