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Amid mass power outages this past summer in the DTE and Consumers Energy service territories, tens of thousands of Michigan residents learned the hard way that the state badly needs to update its basic standards for electric service. Also, after more recent power outages, DTE COO and President Trevor Lauer recognized in a Dec. 31 interview that […]

SEMCO service territory highlighted in yellow above. Source: Michigan Public Service Commission. The Citizens Utility Board (CUB) of Michigan has good news for the over 275,000 residential customers of SEMCO Energy Gas Co, the third-largest natural gas utility in Michigan. SEMCO has reached a settlement with the state Attorney General, the staff of the Michigan

This summer the Lansing Board of Water and Light (LBWL) filed with state regulators its Energy Waste Reduction plan for 2020 and 2021. This plan lays out what the municipal utility will spend on its whole suite of programs to help customers cut their energy use. Specifically, LBWL projects a total annual budget for energy waste reduction

SEMCO service territory highlighted in yellow above. Source: Michigan Public Service Commission. SEMCO Energy Gas Co. is not nearly as big of a name as DTE or Consumers Energy, but all Michigan residential ratepayers should take note of the latest rate increase request from SEMCO – the third-largest natural gas utility in Michigan. This case

The Upper Peninsula (UP) Energy Task Force, formed in June by an order from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, has spent its first few meetings studying the lay of the land of the Upper Peninsula. Now, the Task Force is in its very early stages of determining the potential paths forward for the UP’s energy problems. The goal is to help the region

Last year, a survey found that 71% of utility company leaders believe that a “utility death spiral” is a real possibility without regulatory or other changes. The idea of a “death spiral” has been around for several years and broadly lays out a scenario in which customer adoption of distributed energy technologies that allow customers to use

For decades, many states have required their energy utilities to regularly submit long-term plans laying out what the utilities believe is the best way to provide reliable and cost-effective service to their customers. Known as “integrated resource plans” or IRPs, this planning process forces the utility to show what investments and strategies it will make

The Upper Peninsula Energy Task Force’s second meeting (read our blog post about the first) was held in St. Ignace, Mich., on Aug. 5, just a stone’s throw from the Mackinac Bridge and the Straits of Mackinac. Under those waters is the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline, whose cloudy future is one of the big reasons Gov. Whitmer created the