Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

Michigan regulators have signed off on a scaled-back rate hike for DTE Electric, approving more money for grid upgrades and tree trimming while cutting hundreds of millions from the utility’s original request.

The Michigan Public Service Commission on Thursday authorized a $242.4 million increase in DTE’s annual revenue, nearly 58% less than the $574.1 million the company sought in its latest rate case.

The new rates, which take effect March 5, will raise a typical residential customer’s monthly bill by about $4.93, or 4.6%, for someone using 500 kilowatt hours of electricity.

Regulators framed the decision as an attempt to balance long-delayed investments in reliability with pressure to keep power affordable. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, however, was not impressed.

“As we experience a never-ending cycle of rate hikes, Michigan families are left wondering when enough will finally be enough,” Nessel said. “Year after year, they are asked to dig deeper into their pockets to cover their utility bills, and while my office has been an unwavering advocate for consumers, at a certain point, we must ask whether this system is truly serving the people it was designed to protect.”

The decision comes as DTE reports notable improvements in how quickly it restores power after outages. In 2025, the company’s reliability ranking for restoring customers in all weather conditions reached the top quartile among utilities nationwide for the first time in 20 years, the MPSC said. Customer outage times fell 60% compared to 2024, after a reported 70% reduction from 2023 to 2024.

Between 2020 and 2025, Michigan residential energy bills rose by 5.3 percentage points below the 22.5% inflation rate, according to the MPSC. Federal data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show the average Michigan monthly electric bill was $119.31, compared with a national average of $142.16.

The MPSC also approved $17.8 million for new electric vehicle charging infrastructure within DTE’s service territory. Citing strong EV sales in the first half of 2025, regulators said additional utility-supported “make-ready” investments are needed to prepare sites for chargers and support growing demand.

Alongside the new spending, regulators imposed several oversight and consumer-protection measures. DTE must file a detailed explanation and justification for rate-case spending on external consultants in its next case and create a system to track all rate-case costs for future filings.

The MPSC also ordered DTE to improve outreach around assistance for low-income customers, including better education on accessing programs for home weatherization, energy waste reduction and efficiency measures that can lower household energy bills.

To rein in costs, the MPSC disallowed $63.7 million in spending on projects it said lacked enough detail for full evaluation. Commissioners also rejected $31.2 million tied to infrastructure work at the utility’s former Trenton Channel coal plant, pointing to the absence of firm contracts and internal approvals.

The MPSC further disputed DTE’s inflation projections and adopted its own methodology, which it said would reduce costs by $5.58 million in 2025 and $9.6 million in 2026.