Overview:
-The Michigan Public Service Commission recently approved a $153.8 million rate hike for Consumers.
-The increase exceeded the $82.9 million electric rate hike that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel deemed appropriate.
-DTE Energy also indicated in March it would file another electric rate case on April 23, just months after receiving a $217 million increase.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel criticized Consumers Energy this week after the utility notified regulators of its intent to file another electric rate case in June.
Consumers’ next rate hike request, flagged in a March 28 regulatory filing by the utility, could come just 366 days after the filing of its last request, narrowly complying with a law allowing utilities to file rate cases every 12 months.
The Michigan Public Service Commission granted Consumers a $153.8 million rate hike in March, well above the $82.9 million increase the attorney general said was appropriate and 52% below the $325 million Consumers requested. The increase took effect Friday.
Nessel said that utilities’ increasingly frequent rate hike requests mean customers’ bills are being increased before the impacts of previous rate hikes have been evaluated. Ratepayer advocates have said that frequent rate cases put them at a disadvantage as they struggle to secure expert testimony to push back on requests from deep-pocketed utilities.
“By allowing Consumers Energy and DTE to file a new rate hike every 12 months, the state is allowing these billion-dollar businesses to ask for more and more before anyone can even gauge the impact of the previous rate hike,” Nessel said in a statement.
Consumers spokesperson Brian Wheeler said in a statement that Nessel’s comments were “misleading,” adding the company planned to file a rate case no sooner than June 2, but has not made an official request.
Danny Wimmer, spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, said: “The attorney general is obviously not misleading anyone.” He noted that Consumers Energy’s filing announcement said the company is asking “for authority to increase its rates for the generation and distribution of electricity.”
“There is no requirement that Consumers Energy issue an announcement, unless Consumers Energy is seeking to file a rate hike on or after June 2nd,” Wimmer said.
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Rate hike requests frustrate advocates, add to pressures for ratepayers
Michigan utilities’ almost yearly rate hike requests make it difficult for ratepayer advocates to push back, Amy Bandyk, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Michigan, previously told Planet Detroit.
“There’s an extraordinary amount of time spent duplicating testimony when they file every year,” she said. “The utility can shoulder that burden much easier than the outside groups can.”
A decade ago, rate cases were filed roughly every two years. That interval had fallen to 17 months in 2024, according to MLive.
DTE Energy indicated in March it would file another electric rate case on April 23, just months after receiving a $217 million increase.
These moves come as energy customers face economic headwinds from tariffs and possible cuts to utility assistance as well as ongoing reliability issues.
Michigan ranks ninth in the nation for the average number of outage minutes per customer and 14th for energy cost burden, according to the Citizens Utility Board of Michigan.
President Donald Trump’s recently announced tariffs could compound the stress of higher utility bills in Michigan, a state with close economic ties to Canada and Mexico.
“In the sense of applying to a very broad range of goods and services, I would expect the cost-benefit ratio of those tariffs to be less favorable to Michigan,” Gabriel Ehrlich, an economic forecaster at the University of Michigan, told Bridge Michigan.
The Trump administration also fired the entire federal staff administering the Low Income Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, on Tuesday. This move could hold up funding that helps over 400,000 Michigan residents pay their utility bills.