DETROIT – Michigan officials have intervened as DTE Energy tries to change how some customers receive refunds after power outages.
Right now, thanks to the changes to the service quality rules last year, utility providers are responsible for issuing automatic credits to customers who meet specific outage criteria. Customers do not have to contact their provider to get their credit.
But DTE Energy is trying to change that process for customers whose homes aren’t equipped with smart meters. DTE argues that traditional electric meters require direct customer action and make it difficult for the company to track outages on its own.
“DTE is asking to be excused from complying with the state’s outage credit rules, put in place to hold utilities accountable for their performance and to compensate their bill-paying customers when their lights go out,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said. “DTE has an obligation to provide reliable service to all its customers, regardless of whether they have smart meters or not.”
DTE wants customers who don’t have smart meters to be required to call DTE if they believe an outage qualified for a credit. The 90-day deadline for the credit would begin at the time the customer reports the outage, not at the time of the outage.
Nessel filed a notice of intervention last week in DTE Energy’s permanent waiver request, which was made before the Michigan Public Service Commission.
“DTE’s phrasing of the outage credit as a ‘benefit’ to their customers is additionally troubling, as the MPSC initially implemented the credits expressly to serve as a ‘penalty’ for poor-performing utility corporations,” Nessel said.
She argues that DTE is trying to put the burden back on customers, even though customers are owed credits for the loss of service for which they’re paying.
“DTE’s desire to erode public accountability measures is unsurprising, but it is an overreach to seek to be permanently excused from complying with the outage credit mandate,” Nessel said. “As always, my team will be carefully scrutinizing this request.”
DTE customers can comment on this matter by clicking here.
Here is a statement from DTE Energy:
DTE remains committed to providing outage credits to all qualifying customers. This happens automatically for the more than 2 million customers with advanced metering infrastructure, or smart meter technology. Approximately 13,000 customers have opted-out of smart meters and continue to use legacy meters, which have technology limitations that prevent the meter from communicating outage information and DTE from proactively issuing a credit. DTE has not requested to be excused from paying outage credits for these customers. The company has requested that these legacy meter customers proactively submit a credit request to help ensure their outage credit is captured and processed.
DTE Energy