DTE seeks double-digit rate hike

[Lowell]

I'll give this to DTE. They have some huge cajones to shove this out amid power outages to hundreds of thousands. But to their credit, they are crediting customers who lost power for four days or more $35 off their next bill. #sarcasm

As DTE continues to work to restore power to all impacted by last week’s ice storm, they aren't just facing tough questions for extended outages, they're also facing questions around a requested rate hike.

Just days after a crippling ice storm left countless DTE customers in metro Detroit without power for days, the company is still hoping to get approval from the Michigan Public Service Commission to raise residential rates by 13.9% and commercial rates by 11.5%.

It's money they say is necessary to improve the grid after the state approved a $31 million rate hike in November.
WXYZ

[jcole]

They should be made to wait until they get the earnings report for this year to see if that $31 mil hurt them in any way. The rate hike their asking for is exponentially higher than what they spent

[401don]

I've said this before but would it not make sense and be more cost effective in the long run to start burying lines, beginning with areas that are most vulnerable to storm damage due to winds, trees, etc. rather than continually cutting trees and repairing lines.

[Ray1936]

I've said this before but would it not make sense and be more cost effective in the long run to start burying lines, beginning with areas that are most vulnerable to storm damage due to winds, trees, etc. rather than continually cutting trees and repairing lines.

As I've noted previously, all residential power lines in Las Vegas and area are underground, and power outages are unheard of.

[angry_fred]

As I've noted previously, all residential power lines in Las Vegas and area are underground, and power outages are unheard of.

That's not exactly apples to apples.

Since 1970[[ish) all new residential DTE lines have been installed underground. I would wager that the overwhelming majority of all housing in Vegas has been built post-1970. That's the exact opposite around here. It's a hell of a lot easier to build underground from the start than it is to dig up an existing yard.

I'm not defending DTE, I still think it's worth doing and I think DTE can afford to incrementally start burying underground lines, but it's not like Vegas woke up one day and decided to start digging at the scale DTE would need to dig at

[Jimaz]

I've said this before but would it not make sense and be more cost effective in the long run to start burying lines, beginning with areas that are most vulnerable to storm damage due to winds, trees, etc. rather than continually cutting trees and repairing lines.

They say it costs three times as much to bury lines and, although buried lines fail less often, they're more expensive to repair when they do fail.

I'm sure they use all kinds of optimization techniques when they do these studies. I can't second guess that. But when it gets to the point where too many people have to use standby generators, we have to ask whether there's any point in long distance power distribution at all. Yes, there's an "economy of scale" to consider but when does that model break down? Maybe it's not that bad yet but it certainly seems headed in that direction.

It's getting easier to understand why "living off the grid" gets mentioned so often nowadays.

We're luging down the decline of civilization. Weeeeee!

[401don]

Well, they buried most existing lines in the Toronto area years ago and we rarely have outages. Then again Ontario Hydro is a gov't entity, billions in debt [[which doesn't make us socialists Richard).

[Richard]

Well, they buried most existing lines in the Toronto area years ago and we rarely have outages. Then again Ontario Hydro is a gov't entity, billions in debt [[which doesn't make us socialists Richard).

So you are hydro electric socialists.

Venezuela is hydro electric,most times they give you power for a couple of hours per day,so that’s when you do every thing that requires power.you get it if and when they let you.Electricity or lack of is a powerful motivator.

Canada actually sells power to our east coast at below rates during the evening,just to get rid of it.

You guys could run an extension cord across the river and help Detroit cut some costs.

Vagas has underground utilities,but no water. You need water not power.Let a hurricane or ice storm hit Vegas and see what happens.

Its more cost effective and faster servicing above ground utilities,even underground utilities are dependent on sub stations,that are above ground.

So you could bury everything a still have substations go down in storms,I have lost power for over 14 days in a subdivision with buried utilities.

Every utility in the country is doubling rates,we get hit with a change of $45 per month for future green energy improvements,whatever the hell that means.

My bill has gone from $100 peak summer to $185 off peak and I am using 25% less energy.

We have been paying since 2004 for hardening our grid,a majority above ground against hurricanes,it’s paying off now.

[sirrealone]

They don't have to bury every line, but surely they can look at areas that have had a high concentration of line failures, and target those areas. A variation of the 80-20 rule would work well in their favor.

But, whenever it's brought up in one of the press conferences, they act like they have no idea what is being asked, and somehow change the subject.

WXYZ Channel 7 news really seems to be trying to force some accountability on them. DTE's failures and their proposed rate hike was the lead story on most of the evening newscasts yesterday.

[Richard]

I do not think it is a question of weather they can do it or not,with utilities every expenditure gets passed on to the consumer.

The question becomes,can the customers afford it,even more so if you have a large concentration of low and fixed income,if they cannot afford it then it gets passed onto those who can.Directly or indirectly.

They also never cut your rates,so any increase due to materials costs that have gone up 400% in some cases,coupled with the scarcity or availability of materials needed due to multiple major storms across the country and world which is also driving up costs,demanding everything be fixed right now will become very expensive forever.

The transformers and such are no longer made in this country,due to environmental concerns in their production,so we are now competing with the world when it comes to acquiring them.

The little Swedish girl as turned against wind turbines so you cannot count on that driving down future costs,when you have a 12 yo dictating energy policies for the world you cannot really expect it to end well.

Plus it is winter,little things like logging for the trees in order to get the poles which are also in short supply has an effect,let alone even transporting them.

It does not help but this story can be repeated in every city with every utility company in the country,personally I have some vintage oil lamps and a generator,power outages become a minor inconvenience.

Okay for home owners but apartment dwellers have to comes up with a different plan.

[Jimaz]

Beginning this month DTE is switching to a Time of Day rate.

From October through May, weekdays from 3PM through 7PM, rates increase to 16.75¢/kWh.

From June through September, weekdays from 3PM through 7PM, rates increase to 20.98¢/kWh.

The rest of the time the price reverts to the lower 15.45¢/kWh rate.

This is to offer an incentive to shift activities like laundry, dish washing, air conditioning and electrical cooking to off-peak hours.

Cutting back on air conditioning for four hours might be a challenge. Then again, there was a time when people survived without it.

Tip: Isopropyl alcohol in a pump spray bottle cools you off really fast.

Fun fact: Modern air conditioning was invented for the printing industry — not to cool the air but to dry it. Paper can be manipulated much more easily in dry air.

[Richard]

We pay .06243/kWh

fuel charge .03791/kWH
storm protection charge .00329/kWh
Clean energy transition mechanism .00441/kWh

Running cool water across your wrists cools you down much faster,because you are cooling the blood flow.

[JBMcB]

The latest rate increase was approved by the Michigan Public Services Commission.

https://www.michigan.gov/mpsc/commis...sion,U%2D20836

Here are the commissioners:
https://www.michigan.gov/mpsc/about

[Richard]

^ and there you have it,the socialization of a power company.

[jcole]

When I lived up in Almont, worked from home and didn't have air, I always kept my printer paper in covered plastic totes with silicon packets otherwise the paper would continually jam my printer.

...
Fun fact: Modern air conditioning was invented for the printing industry — not to cool the air but to dry it. Paper can be manipulated much more easily in dry air.

[shovelhead]

I'll give this to DTE. They have some huge cajones to shove this out amid power outages to hundreds of thousands. But to their credit, they are crediting customers who lost power for four days or more $35 off their next bill. #sarcasm

As DTE continues to work to restore power to all impacted by last week’s ice storm, they aren't just facing tough questions for extended outages, they're also facing questions around a requested rate hike.

Just days after a crippling ice storm left countless DTE customers in metro Detroit without power for days, the company is still hoping to get approval from the Michigan Public Service Commission to raise residential rates by 13.9% and commercial rates by 11.5%.

It's money they say is necessary to improve the grid after the state approved a $31 million rate hike in November.
WXYZ

Yeah, DTE is all heart with a thirty five dollar credit for outages lasting four or more days. I’m feeling so warm and fuzzy.

We were out seventy hours almost to the minute. Cost me forty bucks a day in gasoline to run my generator. If I didn’t I’d have had a flooded basement due to the high water table we are on along with the melting snow, rain and thawing ground.

The outage map said our power went off Thursday morning but actually went off Wednesday night around 9PM. Early Friday morning we were given an ETA of Saturday evening for repairs to be completed. Then Saturday the area map time of outage was changed to Saturday at 12:30 PM with an estimated repair date of Monday. Navigating the outage site to get a contact was useless, I had to “like” DTE on FB to find out that I had to contact them through the Messenger part with a question of why the false outage date and the “bump” ahead of forty eight hours for restoration. Crickets, basically got a canned response in the chat and I again asked how and why were the times being falsified. Second time, no answer whatsoever.

Power was restored early Saturday evening. I just wonder if the changed dates were to make it look to the MPSC that they were “diligently” working to restore power by changing outage times?

[Lowell]

It will interesting to see how the continuing improvement of battery storage and the growing EV fleet could effect this. Battery plants are being built everywhere now. In my case I long ago gave up on DTE dependability, having a home-based business I couldn't go down, and got a natural gas-powered whole house generator and it has saved me through three major outages.

My next move will be likely a whole house battery. That would allow lower rate off hours recharging then using that power during peak rate hours. Many of those are tied into rooftop solar panels but that wouldn't work in my location.

I am also reading that systems are being set up where batteries from parked EV's could be fed and sold back into the grid during high-demand heat wave situations. I can't pull up the resource right now but I think that is already in place in parts of California where the EV fleet is now sizable. This is about to blow up as seen in this quote.

Passenger electric vehicle [[EV) sales are set to grow rapidly in the next few years, rising from 6.6 million sold in 2021 to 21 million in 2025. The fleet of EVs on the road hits 77 million by 2025 and 229 million by 2030, based on BNEF’s Economic Transition Scenario. That’s up from 16 million at the end of 2021, and reflective of the remarkable success story of EVs in the energy transition to date.

As EV uptake continues to grow, they are already displacing 1.5 million barrels of oil demand per day. Most of this is from electric two- and three-wheelers in Asia, but rising passenger EV sales push this to 2.5 million barrels per day by 2025. Overall, oil demand from road transport is now set to peak by 2027

[Richard]

Reading the rate increase report it has little to do with fixing the system,the increase that was approved has more to do with reimbursement to DTE for requested expenditure outside of providing power and a stable grid.

It pays them back or allows a rate increase in order to provide low income with reduced energy costs ,pays back DTE for when the give a $1500 check to homeowners for installation of an EV charger etc.

They are using the power company in order to implement social change programs and disguising it as a rate increase because people think it is going to improve services,when it has little to do with that.

DTE said they needed $330m in order to fix the grid,the commission approved $30m in order to implement the social programs,they are not interested in fixing a grid they do not want in the future,the whole idea is to get people away from the grid.

A number of pilot projects were approved for full or partial recovery in rates, including a non-wires alternative project to effectively integrate distributed energy resources into the grid, a lithium-ion battery to replace a diesel-fueled peaker plant, a pay-as-you-save financing model for electric transit buses, make-ready rebates for electric vehicle chargers, and residential rebates for installation of electric vehicle chargers.

Nothing there is funding repairs or improvements.

[Rocket]

Seems to be a trend.

Gary Brown who heads the water department recently jacked the water rates WAY up for the poor, so he could cut the rates for homeowners. Then he shut off the phones in his office so no one could call him to ask why.