State utility regulators are defending their decision to approve a more than 4.5% rate hike for DTE Energy electricity customers, beginning in March.
The Michigan Public Service Commission said DTE will invest the extra revenue in more tree trimming and grid upgrades. The agency says DTE has already significantly improved reliability.
"For the first time in at least two decades, DTE Electric’s reliability ranking for restoring customers experiencing outages in all weather conditions hit the top quartile among energy utilities around the country in 2025, lowering customer outage times 60% compared to 2024," the MPSC said in a press release. "That noteworthy milestone came after the utility reported a 70% reduction in the amount of time customers were without power from 2023 to 2024."
The commission also said DTE's rate hikes in the past five years have been lower than the rate of inflation, and the rate increase approved ($242.4 million) was 58% lower than the amount the utility originally requested.
But Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said the order was still too generous. She said electricity customers are burdened by a "never-ending cycle of rate hikes" and "at a certain point we must ask whether the system is truly serving the people it was designed to protect."
The Michigan League of Conservation Voters also criticized the electricity rate increase, the fourth in five years.
"Michiganders are grappling with skyrocketing energy costs, and now they just hiked our energy bills again," said the organization's Alex Kellogg. Michiganders pay the highest energy costs in the Midwest with some of the worst reliability in the country. The constant rate hikes year after year are putting major strains on working families. "
Kellogg said state legislators should pass a proposed "Ratepayer Bill of Rights" that would ban utilities from making political donations to lawmakers, keep CEO bonuses from adding to rates, and "guarantee the right to reliable, affordable energy for every household."
DTE Energy is among Michigan Public 's corporate supporters.
