CUB Statement on the DTE Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) Case Settlement

July 26, 2023

By Amy Bandyk

Executive Director

Citizens Utility Board (CUB) of Michigan

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"DTE’s integrated resource plan shows that the company will support clean energy only if it can also saddle ratepayers with unnecessary profit for shareholders from coal plant retirements at the same time. The IRP settlement agreement that the MPSC is approving today includes a provision that allows DTE to charge its ratepayers for a 9% return for DTE shareholders on billions of dollars that make up the undepreciated book value of the Monroe coal-fired power plant, which will be retired. For 15 years, DTE’s customers will be paying off the Monroe coal plant plus the 9% return that represents pure profit for shareholders. DTE residential customers already pay some of the highest rates in the country for substandard service with frequent outages. It is obscene to pile this shareholder return on top of their already high bills. 

It didn’t have to be this way. The clean energy progress that beneficial provisions of the IRP will achieve could have gone forward without the giveaway to shareholders. DTE could have planned to charge ratepayers for the undepreciated value of the Monroe coal plant over time, but without the 9% shareholder return.

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