Michigan Breaking News

DTE Backtracks, Wants Customers to Pay Blackout's Tab 8/29

DTE Backtracks, Wants Customers to Pay Blackout's Tab

(August 29) On August 27, DTE Energy, the Detroit-area utility, announced it will seek state approval to raise electricity rates to recover the $35 million to $40 million the utility lost during the blackout in the Midwest and Northeast. It did not reveal the amount of the rate increase it will seek and said only that the request will come in the near future. Customers would not pay any increase until 2006 if approved by the Michigan Public Service Commission.

Anthony Earley Jr., DTE's chairman and chief executive officer who was hailed for his show of leadership during the blackout, said in an Aug. 19 Free Press interview that DTE would not ask consumers to pay for the blackout losses.

Residential rates are capped at current levels through 2005. Two months ago, DTE had proposed increasing residential rates in 2006 by an average of $5.80 a month. Customers have paid about the same rates for more than a decade. A spokesman for DTE said the proposed rate increase would be in addition to the one sought in June.

On August 14, failures resulting from the blackout that caused 50 million customers in eight states and Canada to lose power caused nine of Detroit Edison's power plants to go down. Virtually all of DTE's 2.1 million customers lost power. Many customers, including large grocery stores, must pay for the losses sustained during the 36-hour outage.

DTE estimates the financial impact of the blackout at $35 million to $40 million. The tab includes overtime spent getting the system back to normal, repairs made to plants and the cost of purchasing power.

Source: Detroit Free Press

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