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CUB has been arguing for years that a key part of the solution to Michigan’s problem of poor electric reliability and high energy costs for customers has to be performance-based regulation: rules that hold utilities accountable by financially penalizing them if they fail to perform well on metrics like the number of outages. Now, the […]

New expert witness testimony filed in DTE’s latest electric rate case exposes how the utility’s proposed rate hike, one of its biggest ever, does not deliver value to customers and fails to take the steps needed to turn around DTE’s abysmal record on reliability. This rate case is another example of how Michigan’s utility regulatory system

The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) held three town hall meetings this week where they heard hours of testimonials, many of them filled with outrage, about the recent severe power outages. Along with the Michigan House committee hearing last week and a Michigan Senate committee hearing on March 23, the response to the performance of DTE Energy

After the recent severe power outages across southeast Michigan, many Michigan lawmakers called for answers from DTE and Consumers Energy for their unacceptably poor electric service. The first major step in getting those answers came at a lengthy hearing of the Michigan House Energy, Communications and Technology Committee on March 15. Among those who testified were representatives

In its newest rate case, filed earlier this month, DTE, the largest electricity provider in Michigan, proposes a 13.9% residential rate increase. That rate hike is among the biggest proposed by a Michigan utility in the past several years, but it also represents a slap in the face to DTE customers, as well as the Michigan

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is urging state regulators to open up lobbying activities by utilities to more oversight and transparency by instituting a slate of much-needed reforms that would help groups like CUB counteract the influence that utilities have had on the political and ratemaking process — often to the detriment of ratepayers. AG

In December, CUB released its latest edition of the annual Utility Performance Report. We already did a blog post summarizing some of the major findings in that report, but now we’d like to touch upon another area of the report that seems relevant given Gov. Whitmer’s recent State of the State address: the environmental impacts created by Michigan’s

The electric grid is changing quickly, moving away from a centralized system of thermal power plants to a more distributed and renewable grid. One of CUB’s priorities is to make sure utility customers get a fair share of the benefits of this process or change, while also not having to cover an undue amount of

Good news for Michigan utility customers! In a November post we explained the eyebrow-raising proposal from DTE to sell customers on a program where they could prepay a fixed amount for their electricity service, but be suddenly disconnected from service if the prepaid amount ran out. At its last meeting of 2022, on Dec. 21, the Michigan

This year utility customers in Detroit protested shabby treatment by DTE. Lawmakers said the problem of unaccountable utility companies is big enough that consumers need more protection and introduced bills to create new laws that would penalize utilities and compensate customers for long power outages. Is the service from Michigan’s utilities really that bad? Are these reactions exaggerations? For