DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – The adverse reaction to a 8.8% DTE proposed electric rate hike was widespread and
consistent during a public hearing in Detroit on Monday night. Hundreds of people showed up to protest the rate hike and dozens of them spoke out against it for almost three hours at the hearing.
According to the service map on the company’s website, DTE provides energy to the eastern part of lower Michigan including the counties of Huron, Sanilac, St. Clair, Macomb, Wayne, and Washtenaw; most of Lapeer, Oakland and Livingston; and parts of Ingham and Monroe counties.
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DTE says the rate hike would cost the “average” customer in those counties an extra $10.31 a month but didn’t say how the hike would affect Michigan businesses at a time when they are already struggling with increased costs for everything from supplies to labor.
The meeting was held by the Michigan Public Services Commission (MPSC) which will decide the fate of the rate hike in November.
DTE had asked the MPSC for the authority to increase its rates, amend its rate schedules and rules governing the distribution and supply of electric energy and for miscellaneous accounting authority.
The audience at the meeting was diverse and included a group called “Defend Black Voters Coalition” who were against the rate hike.
Ken Whittaker, Executive Director of Michigan’s People’s Campaign said he wanted DTE to hear the stories of real people living through struggles to pay their electric bills.
A speaker named Taylor drove the point home by saying, “We can’t even pay bus fare to get here, which is $2. So please do not raise our bills.”
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What’s the extra money needed for? DTE Energy Director of Community Engagement Rodney Cole said, “What this is all about is investing in the grid. The grid needs investment. So every so often, you have to go in and do necessary maintenance and necessary repairs.”
And clearly, the money needed is related to the green energy plans of the company which projects that 40% of DTE’s energy will be generated from non-carbon emitting sources by 2023 and they plan to have net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The company said, “That’s why we need to invest in the electric grid to bring on new forms
of renewable energy.”
In their application for the rate hike, DTE said they needed the “opportunity to recover its costs of operation, including a reasonable rate of return.”
In July, DTE reported that rate of return as second-quarter earnings of $37 million. During the meeting, community member Erik Shelley called on the MPSC to do its job and “protect consumers” and said that their concern should be the public, not DTE Energy.
Pastor Kevin Harris from Detroit’s Nazarene Baptist Church agreed and spoke directly to the MPSC to remind them of their mission statement which says “to serve the public by ensuring safe, reliable, services at reasonable rates.”
