Citizens Utility Board of Michigan

More and more people are thinking about putting up solar panels on their homes. One of the biggest barriers to people installing solar panels has to do with perhaps the most basic question: Where do I put the darn things? Maybe your roof isn’t big enough. Maybe you rent, and don’t have the right to dictate what goes on your roof. Maybe you don't have the upfront cash for a down payment on solar panels. Or maybe it's a combination of all those factors and more.

Community solar is a concept created to address situations like that and expand access to solar power for those who would otherwise not be able to use solar panels. The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) recently held a meeting about community solar as part of the New Technologies and Business Models workgroup under the MI Power Grid initiative (MI Power Grid being the commission’s ongoing effort to transform its regulatory approach for Michigan energy in light of the disruption brought by renewable and distributed energy and energy storage).

We are just a few weeks away from the Upper Peninsula Energy Task Force’s deadline to submit its final report to the governor about how to confront the complicated challenges facing the Upper Peninsula and its access to reliable, affordable and clean energy.

On March 3, the task force held one of its last meetings, in which the members discussed the draft recommendations for the final report, due March 31, and potential ways to improve the recommendations.

Photo by Jason Pratt, used under Creative Commons license CC BY 3.0

We are about a year into COVID-19 and the pandemic, and while the toll it is having on the economy is as bad as ever, the protections for ratepayers have not gotten stronger in response. Quite the contrary—they are more meager than at the outset of the pandemic, when Michigan utilities like DTE and Consumers Energy were promising not to shut off power for vulnerable customer groups such as low-income and elderly customers.

In testimony recently filed with the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) on behalf of the Citizens Utility Board (CUB) of Michigan, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the National Housing Trust, expert witness Roger Colton, a consultant on utility issues for low-income customers, lays out in detail what should be done to help get customers through this winter and why the current approach is flawed.

It’s been about a year and a half since Michigan’s “wake-up call” moment for electric reliability: a summer 2019 day of devastating thunderstorms that led to catastrophic losses of power across the service territories of DTE and Consumers Energy. The incident focused attention on the Michigan utilities’ generally poor performance when dealing with power outages and the need for a regulatory solution. Now, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) is close to finalizing new standards for service quality for electric utilities. That includes, most prominently, the bill credits that are due to customers who experience prolonged outages (More background here, and also check out this paper from March 2020 which goes into much greater detail on ways to improve reliability in Michigan).

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The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) on Dec. 17 ordered that Consumers Energy can raise rates on its electric customers by around $100 million for 2021, representing a nearly 60% cut of the utility’s original rate hike request. The MPSC’s order is broadly in line with a proposed decision by an administrative law judge that we blogged about in October.

Photo by Brendan Wood, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0

We are entering a winter that is particularly bleak due to the continuing pandemic. Access to home heating services is more important than ever, so it is good news that an additional $54.5 million in funding will be available for heating assistance for low-income customers, as the Michigan Public Service Commission and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced Dec. 3.

A word that comes up frequently in discussions about the future of energy in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is “opportunity.” “Clean energy is a big opportunity for the Upper Peninsula,” Bryan Newland, the tribal chairman of the Bay Mills Indian Community in the eastern end of the UP, said in his opening remarks at the UP Clean Energy Conference, held virtually Nov. 9. Wind and solar energy backed up by batteries can create more locally-sourced power, which means more jobs for the UP, Newland said.

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Consumers Energy’s pending request to increase its revenue, which would amount to one of the biggest rate hikes from the utility in years, should be slashed over 56%, an administrative law judge (ALJ) recommended to the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) last week. If that cut is approved by the MPSC, the rate increase on Consumers Energy customers would be around 2.5%, instead of the 5.9% increase requested by the utility.

Overall, it is encouraging that the judge is recommending real discipline onto Consumers Energy’s rate proposal. The utility asked to raise rates more than usual at a time of unprecedented economic stress for its customers.

Photo by Brendan Wood, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.

Fake utility scam calls have been on the rise in recent weeks based on reports made to the Michigan Public Service Commission’s (MPSC) Customer Assistance Division. As a result, the MPSC is warning customers to be on alert for calls threatening to cut off service and demanding immediate payment.

Part of the mission of the Upper Peninsula Task Force is to “formulate alternative solutions for meeting the UP’s energy needs,” including “alternative means to supply the energy sources currently used by UP residents, and alternatives to those energy sources.” As we have written about in this space before, that mission has led the task force to explore electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy as options to make energy more affordable for the region in the long-term while also transitioning toward the goal of lower emissions.

Expanding both EVs and renewable energy will require cooperation with local governments in Michigan’s cities and townships, who in many cases set ordinances and permitting processes that determine how difficult it is to build wind farms, solar panel arrays, EV charging stations and more.

Easier said than done.