Citizens Utility Board of Michigan

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.

Source: Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

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 the right direction at a time when help for customers is certainly sorely needed. But it is only a baby step—in the context of the scale of the unaffordability crisis facing Consumers Energy’s customers, and the utility’s pending electric rate case in which it proposes one of the biggest hikes in customer bills in recent memory.

An EV charging station at a parking deck in Houghton, Mich. Source: Plugshare.com

It has been almost an entire summer since we checked in on the progress of the Upper Peninsula Energy Task Force, which, after delivering its report on propane supply and alternatives to Line 5, is now about six months away from a final report on much broader energy issues facing this unique part of Michigan. For this second phase the task force is asked by the governor to “formulate alternative solutions for meeting the UP’s energy needs, with a focus on security, reliability, affordability, and environmental soundness.”

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.

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, an infrastructure recovery mechanism will go into effect that will push rates up by 0.8%, so a typical residential customer using 100 cubic feet of gas per month will see their bills go up by 4.7% overall, according to a statement from the Michigan Public Service Commission.

Electric utilities are often talked about as being in a state of transition, needing to adapt, move into the 21st century, and a host of other buzz terms. For example: the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) describes the purpose of Michigan’s MI Power Grid initiative as “to maximize the benefits of the transition to clean, distributed energy resources for Michigan residents and businesses” and “make changes to utility regulation designed to ensure that the state’s clean energy future provides safe, reliable, affordable, and accessible energy resources.”

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 and made essential personnel scarcer, is a potential threat to reliability…

[Please read the entire article by CUB President Robert Nelson on Energy News Network]

The Upper Peninsula Energy Task Force turned its attention in May and June meetings to studying the grid that delivers electricity to homes and businesses in the UP – the power generation assets (power plants, etc.) and the transmission and distribution lines that crisscross the peninsula. This work encompasses the second charge in Executive Order 2019-14 from Governor Gretchen Whitmer for the task force: “to formulate alternative solutions for meeting the region’s energy needs, with a focus on security, reliability, affordability and environmental soundness. “ The task force must submit its report on overall UP energy issues and alternatives to Gov. Whitmer by March 31, 2021.

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

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 period of economic crisis becomes due.