Electricity bills will increase this winter for DTE Energy’s 2.3 million electric customers – and not just because of the cold weather.
The Michigan Public Service Commission approved a rate increase for DTE on Friday, Nov. 18, totaling $30.6 million. That equates to a 0.78% increase – or about 71 cents per month for a typical residential customer using 500 kilowatt hours of electricity per month.
DTE had asked for an increase nearly 12 times higher. It filed for a $388 million rate increase in January, but the MPSC approved only a fraction of the ask. Utilities cannot raise rates in Michigan without state approval.
The rate increase goes into effect Friday, Nov. 25, per an MPSC news release.
The extra money will be used for “increased investments in its generation and distribution systems,” per the MPSC. Some of the money will go toward a handful of pilot projects, including one that gives rebates to customers so they can install electric vehicle chargers at their house.
Many other pilot projects were shot down by the MPSC, although DTE was encouraged to resubmit those plans via a separate process.
DTE’s last electric rate increase came in May 2020 when the MPSC granted a $188 million hike. The utility had asked for a $351 million increase.
DTE’s electric territory spans Southeast Michigan and north into the Thumb.
This year, DTE said it needed to raise rates because of a decline in electric usage. The MPSC disagreed.
“The Commission found that, despite DTE Electric’s previous projections of declining electric use among its residential customers, residential electric sales surged in 2020 and increased again in 2021, even as many Michiganders returned to working from their places of employment and resumed pre-COVID activities,” the MPSC news release said.
The Citizens Utility Board of Michigan – a nonprofit residential utility ratepayer advocate – celebrated Friday’s news. Granting the full $388 million request would have put an unfair burden on residential customers, the group said.
DTE “failed to justify the costs it wanted to pass onto customers as reasonable or prudent,” CUB of Michigan said in a Friday news release.
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