Citizens Utility Board of Michigan

Menominee, Mich., located in UMERC’s service territory. Source: Bobak Ha’Eri. License: CC BY-SA 3.0

CUB, the Michigan Attorney General and other parties have reached a settlement with the Upper Peninsula utility Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corp. (UMERC) that the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) expects will help confront the greater UP’s problem of overreliance on natural gas (U-21081).

The settlement, approved by the MPSC at its May 12 meeting, allows UMERC to move ahead with its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), the MPSC-required filing in which the utility shows what resources it will use to serve its customers over 5-year, 10-year, 15-year and 20-year time horizons. The IRP represents “a win for customers across the UP” because it “provides valuable resource diversity” for the region, MPSC Chair Dan Scripps said at the Commission’s meeting.

The MPSC commissioners at their meeting on May 12.

On May 12, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) issued an order in which it agreed to a proposal suggested by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and the Citizens Utility Board of Michigan meant to ensure that the state’s regulated utilities take full advantage of new federal funding opportunities for a variety of renewable energy, smart grid and other energy-related projects.

Source. License.

Several weeks ago the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) issued a disappointing order that, for the most part, ignored the reforms proposed by the Citizens Utility Board (CUB) of Michigan and other groups and did not hold the state’s utilities accountable for increasingly frequent power outages. Read our blog post here and our initial statement for the full background on that decision.

We ended that blog post by saying: “CUB is not done fighting for a fairer approach to consumers who lose power. Stay tuned.”

We can now announce the next step in this fight: on April 13, state Reps. Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck) and Yousef Rabhi (D-Ann Arbor) introduced a package of legislation that would enshrine into law consumer protections that help all Michigan residents cope with the dangers, costs and inconveniences that come with frequent power outages.

Today at 6-8 pm, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) is holding a virtual public forum on Indiana Michigan Power Co.’s integrated resource plan (IRP), giving customers of the utility the chance to voice their thoughts on Indiana Michigan Power’s plan that outlines from where it will obtain power over the next 20 years.

Go here for information on how to join the forum online or via phone.

Case U-21189

The Citizens Utility Board of Michigan is intervening in this case to ensure that Indiana Michigan Power customers are served by the most economic mix of power possible to keep bills affordable.

“DTE and Consumers Energy, which together provide power to a majority of Michigan residents, appear to be aiming for just marginal improvements in grid reliability. Much more is needed for Michigan residents to be safe and secure in their homes with stable access to electricity, a basic necessity,” CUB Executive Director Amy Bandyk wrote in a Detroit News op-ed at the end of last year.

Unfortunately, on March 17, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) failed to rise to the level of what is needed to alleviate the poor service Michiganders have been receiving from their utilities at high price. After nearly two years of engagement with CUB, Attorney General Dana Nessel and other stakeholder groups (as we have chronicled on this blog, see here, here and here, for example), the MPSC made only the most modest of changes to the service quality and reliability standards. Those standards have not been substantively changed since 2004, so this may be a sad missed opportunity to give teeth to our regulations.

Source: Google Maps

When you pay your utility bills, you pay for the energy that goes into your home and the infrastructure that carries it there. But many people do not know that your bill payments also may help fund political stances supported by your utility, either directly or indirectly through trade associations.

CUB of Michigan has teamed up with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to shed light on this complicated but important topic by submitting comments in response to a notice of inquiry issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

“Ratepayers across the country may be bearing hundreds of millions of dollars in higher rates in any given year to pay for utilities to support causes and influence policy issues that are not related to the provision of utility service and, in many cases, may be contrary to ratepayers’ interests,” our comments said.

The Citizens Utility Board (CUB) of Michigan, the state’s independent nonprofit residential utility ratepayer advocate, is proud to announce that it has elected Keith Cooley as its next president, replacing Robert Nelson, who recently concluded his three-year term as president and will continue to serve on CUB’s board of directors. Marquette City Commissioner and CUB Secretary Jenn Hill has been elected vice president, and she will continue serving as secretary.

Consumers Energy’s offices at One Energy Plaza, Jackson. Source. Licensed Under Creative Commons License CC BY-SA 4.0.

Just before the holidays, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) issued one of their most notable decisions of 2021: they approved a rate increase for customers of Consumers Energy’s electric utility that was 88% lower than the company initially requested.

That is a truly significant change, and CUB was glad to see that much of the reduction was from cuts that we had proposed in testimony filed jointly with Michigan Environmental Council, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, as well as cuts proposed by other intervening groups such as the Attorney General. At the same time, on less positive notes, the MPSC also rejected some of our proposals to tie Consumers Energy’s distribution grid spending to clear performance targets so ratepayers have better assurance their money is being spent wisely. In addition, while the rate increase is much lower than it could have been, it is still nonetheless a rate increase, and one that comes at a time when residential rates have been climbing for years despite Consumers Energy customers receiving highly unreliable service compared to the service provided by utilities in the rest of the country.

Electric vehicles (EVs) seem poised to revolutionize both transportation and electric power, but how widely will their benefits be shared across society? Although automakers have been rolling out more affordable models, EVs have tended to be luxury items that are out of reach of most consumers. In addition, the costs of transitioning the grid and road infrastructure to EVs may fall hardest on these same customers who can least afford EVs.

To help ensure that policies to manage the transition toward EVs are fair and consumer-friendly, the Citizens Utility Board of Michigan has released a report, The ABCs of Michigan EVs: A Policy Guide To Electrify Michigan. The report is one of a series being produced by the other Citizens Utility Boards in the Midwest, representing Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ohio.

The 2021 Utility Performance Report—the latest entry in our annual series of scorecards that rank Michigan utilities compared to those in the rest of the country—is out now!

Like last year’s report, this year’s edition again finds that Michigan utilities perform worse than average on most measures of reliability of service, affordability of energy and levels of environmental impact. But the 2021 report shows that these trends are either staying the same or getting worse, using numbers updated from last year with 2019 and (when available) 2020 data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.