Consumers Energy customers to see 2.8% rate hike on electric bills starting in April
State officials approved an electricity rate hike for Consumers Energy, a company whose service area includes much of mid-Michigan and part of southeast Michigan.
The Michigan Public Service Commission made that decision Friday, allowing the company to issue an increase that will be about 2.8% for residential customers. A typical residential customer will notice an increase of $2.78 a month on the billing.
This rate hike, effective April 4, will result in an additional $153,809,000 in revenue for the company; with the investment aimed at reducing the frequency of power outages and helping the electric grid be "more reliable and resilient."
Specifically, the company is expected to:
- Follow a four-year tree trimming schedule.
- Update systems to more quickly learn where faults are occurring.
- Noticeably decrease the number of customers who experience four or more outages a year from the 10% reported during 2023 to 6%.
"We plan to roll up our sleeves and accelerate building the electric grid for the next generation," said Greg Salisbury, Consumers Energy's vice president of electric grid design, in a statement. "We want our neighbors to know we will be working every day to make our system more reliable and more resilient to keep the lights on, even after the worst storms."
Consumers Energy had sought an overall 8.2% rate hike. In response, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel argued that it should be no more than 1.8%.
Michigan law states that utility companies can only file requests for rate increases once every 12 months. This spring's rate hike will take effect about a year after the public service commission granted a rate hike for Consumers Energy customers in March 2024; that increase of 1.6% also was granted at a lower amount than the company requested.
That being said: Consumers Energy filed the rate increase request in May 2024, just a few weeks after the March 2024 approval was given.
Another electric company that serves much of Southeast Michigan, DTE Energy, was granted permission in January for a rate increase. That 4.6% increase took effect Feb. 6.
In the meantime, DTE Energy already has informed state officials that it plans to file the request for another increase that would take effect in 2026.
"Consumers Energy and DTE keep coming back to the trough, and over and over again Michiganders are forced to pay higher and higher bills just to keep the lights on," Nessel said in her statement this week.
