When it comes to power outages, Michiganders have experienced their share of them over the years − and after a big one earlier this month, many are fed up.
Take Charlotte Adamaszek, who, in the last few weeks alone, endured three of them.
The most recent outage for the 77-year-old Grosse Pointe Farms widow was Tuesday, July 14. Before that — during the Fourth of July weekend, when 400,000 DTE Energy customers lost power — she had to get a room at a Holiday Inn because it was too hot to stay at home. She also lost power in mid-June.
“Something is really wrong,” she said of the Detroit-based power company, noting that she and her neighbors have been experiencing outages for decades. Some, for a few hours, and some for days. “If we could get together and — I don’t know — march on Lansing or something, I’d be willing to do that because this is just nuts!”
DTE Energy, one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, is under increasing scrutiny from customers, elected officials and now the Public Service Commission, which said it is investigating about 1,200 complaints since the July 3 storms swept across the state.
And if climate scientists are correct, DTE will increasingly face more extreme weather events.
Most of the complaints, the three-member state regulatory agency told the Free Press in response to an inquiry, “were from people upset about the duration of the outage, restoration efforts, spoiled foods and the power outage credit amount.”
The PSC added that while it is looking into the complaints, it won’t be “used to penalize” the utility.
Moreover, the commission said, it could not release “names, addresses and other personally identifiable information” to the Free Press to independently look into the concerns because the utility is an investor-owned, publicly traded company, not a government entity.
As for the $42 utility credit, which DTE is required to offer, neither the PSC nor DTE could give an estimate of how many people would receive it. Instead, the commission referred the Free Press to DTE for that information, and the utility said an estimate for the credits — and overall cost for power restoration — was “not yet available.”
What the PSC did say, however, was that under the utility credit guidelines, “customers will only be eligible for the $42 credit (and $42 more each additional day) if they were without power for 96 hours or more.” In other words: If you are one of the hundreds of thousands of customers hoping for a credit, don’t hold your breath.
Controversy over compensation
Power reliability in Michigan has been an issue for years.
So has the amount of customer compensation from the regulated utilities, which customers — and the Free Press — have questioned, and to which the Public Service Commission has responded. In the past few years, the PSC modified the guidelines for credits and boosted the amounts for them.
Some argue the amount is still inadequate.
In 2024, after severe thunderstorms knocked out power to a half-million Michigan customers, many customers wondered whether they would receive the then-$38 utility credit that the commission set to help them. At the time, the short answer was: Probably not.
That was because the guidelines allow utilities time to make repairs before they kick in.
Back then, the PSC confirmed with the Free Press that it was likely — if the utility outage estimates and repair forecasts stayed on track — that DTE would be issuing relatively few credits. DTE, when asked about the credits at the time, mostly sidestepped the issue.
Then, like now, the thought of receiving no compensation irked customers, especially those who complained on social media that they lost hundreds of dollars’ worth of spoiled food or had to stay in a hotel because they had no lights and in sweltering heat, no air conditioning.
That’s not to imply, however, that no one ever receives outage credits.
The PSC recently pointed out that changes to the credit system in the past few years have meant utilities overall are refunding more to customers who lose power. In 2024, the PSC said, Michigan customers received more than $8.45 million in credits. That amount was seven times the $1.21 million they got back in 2022.
Are $42 credits enough?
Part of the reason why the overall credit amount increased is that the PSC boosted the credits from $25 to $35 in 2023. They went up again to $38, and in 2024, to $40, and are now $42. The other is that the commission also changed the requirement so utilities must pay credits automatically, instead of making customers apply for them.
As a result, even if the number of people who received credits stayed the same, the total amount utilities had to pay in 2024, compared to 2022, would have been more because the credits were more; and customers who, in the past, might have forgotten to or didn’t know they were eligible for them got them.
And yet, if an outage is deemed to be what the PSC called catastrophic — 10% or more of the customers lose power — the utility has up to 96 hours, four days, to make the repairs and restore power before the credits take effect.
Critics of the guidelines, which include some nonprofit groups, note that a four-day outage without compensation is too long. It’s even longer than the common-sense adage about fish and houseguests, which holds that after three days they both start to stink.
“The outage credits DTE offers cover a fraction of the costs people incurred,” Alex Kellogg, the energy accountability manager for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, said, adding, “the credits only kick in after an enormous amount of time.”
PSC has acknowledged both concerns.
In 2024, the PSC told the Free Press that outage credits are just “one tool” the agency can use “to encourage utilities to improve the power grid to better withstand increasingly frequent extreme weather and restore power as rapidly as possible after outages.”
The credits also, unlike a traditional fine, go directly back to customers.
“We recognize the outage credits won’t fully compensate customers for lost food, medicine, and other costs incurred during an outage,” the PSC recently told the Free Press, adding that “it does act as an incentive for utilities to get power restored more quickly.”
Recent DTE improvements
DTE, for its part, has said it has heard customers, is aware of the dangers of increasingly extreme weather — which is a big threat to reliability — and has pledged to enhance its reliability and service in the future. And by some accounts, it has already made improvements.
In a July 9 storm alert to customers, DTE warned that more severe weather was coming.
Tucked into the announcement were some numbers: The July 3 storms, the utility said, affected more than 380,000 customers in southeast Michigan; of those, “over 320,000 outages” were restored in less than 48 hours. The math suggests that after two days, 60,000 or so customers were still without lights.
At that restoration rate, few customers would be left after four days to receive credits.
The utility did verify, however, that on top of whatever credits it will be required to issue from the July 3 storms, it voluntarily offered $100 gift cards to customers who met certain eligibility requirements as a gesture. It did not detail to the Free Press how many gift cards it gave away.
If all that wasn’t bad enough, however, this week DTE rescheduled planned outages for equipment upgrades to avoid disruptions during the intense heat after being questioned about it. Some customers wondered why the company would have scheduled an outage during a heat wave.
On top of that, overnight Tuesday, power went out in northwest Detroit for nearly 8,000 customers. The cause: two underground cables to a DTE Energy substation failed. The company said Wednesday afternoon it hoped to have the power back in those areas within a day.
To speed up the power restoration, DTE set up several generators the size of a semi-truck trailer.
Still, the widespread, holiday weekend outage comes just months after the PSC announced DTE was getting an additional $242.4 million rate increase. In the statement, the commission praised the company for “showing tangible improvements in reliability.”
The rate increase, the PSC said, was 58% lower than the $574.1 million the company had initially sought, by cutting programs that “were not effective, not supported, or poorly planned, focusing its approved investments only on what is reasonable and prudent and providing benefits to customers.”
But the commission also said that “for the first time in at least two decades” DTE’s reliability ranking in 2025 “hit the top quartile among energy utilities around the country.” That year, the utility lowered its customer outage times 60% compared to 2024, which the PSC called a “noteworthy milestone.”
Adamaszek, however, said her recent outages show considerable improvement is necessary.
DTE, which is now seeking a $474.3 million rate hike, told the Free Press that it is investing in the grid to do just that, as well as guard against extreme weather, which, the power company said, is among the biggest challenges that electric utilities face.
Free Press staff writer Christina Hall contributed.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Exclusive: Exasperated DTE customers file 1,200 complaints after storm
Reporting by Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
