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Consumers Energy has been in the news again, announcing $12 million in bill relief for residential and small business customers that CEO Patti Poppe says is the largest financial relief fund the utility has ever offered, as reported by Crain’s Detroit Business. The Citizens Utility Board (CUB) of Michigan sees this as a step in

Michigan regulators have approved a settlement agreement that concludes Consumers Gas’s latest rate case, cuts the utility’s requested rate increase on residential customers by about half and provides additional assistance to low-income customers who are struggling to pay utility bills in the current economic climate. Residential ratepayers will see a 9% rate increase, compared to

On Aug. 20 the Michigan Public Service Commission approved a settlement agreement that allows DTE’s natural gas utility to increase monthly bills for a typical residential customer by 3.9%, down from the 8.3% originally requested by DTE. The new rates will come into effect on Oct. 1, 2020. But just a few months later, in January, 2021,

The COVID-19 pandemic is revealing many gaps in emergency preparedness and disaster mitigation across the country. In the world of energy, some of the biggest potential emergencies stem from problems with the reliability of the electric grid, such as frequent blackouts. As has been reported several times, the pandemic, which has caused significant shifts in electric demand

Earlier this week the Michigan state government announced measures that will help low-income ratepayers deal with the imminent removal of certain protections utilities have been offering since the pandemic began in March. This move will mitigate at least some of the economic harm when, as CUB blogged about last month, a “backlog” of unpaid bills built up over this