Consumers Energy Electric Rate Case (U-21389)

To justify its proposed increase in rate base, Consumers Energy “has made much of the need to replace old equipment at an accelerated rate,” according to testimony in the Consumers Energy rate case from 5 Lakes Energy Managing Partner Douglas Jester (also sponsored by CUB, MEC, NRDC and the Sierra Club). But from the standpoint of what is the most cost-effective way to improve reliability, “the Company’s focus on replacing many types of equipment appears misplaced and inefficient,” Jester wrote in his testimony. That is because Jester’s analysis of Consumers’ own numbers on the causes of outages shows that equipment failures is responsible for a very small portion of outages, especially compared to “the effects of trees and weather on overhead conductor, fuses, miscellaneous overhead hardware, wood poles, multiple part failures, crossarms, and cutout,” which caused 70.7% of total customer outage minutes.