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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

DTE wants to sign up customers for a new (voluntary) program in which they would prepay for electricity, and then face near immediate shutoff if the money they put in runs out. Fortunately, an administrative law judge has agreed with testimony filed by CUB and the Michigan Department of Attorney General and recommended that the Michigan Public

On Sept. 8, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), in an order, gave a stark assessment of the state of Michigan’s grid that likely rings true with the tens of thousands of ratepayers that have lost power over the last few weeks: “Put bluntly, Michigan’s distribution reliability is inadequate, and current plans for improvements are insufficient.” The