Thousands of northern Michigan residents affected by the recent ice storm are eligible for power outage credits.
According to an April 10 news release from the Michigan Public Service Commission, under the MPSC’s customer billing rules, customers of investor-owned utilities Consumers Energy Co. and Alpena Power Co., whose rates are regulated by the MPSC, are eligible to receive outage credits on their bills of $40 per day for each day they are without power beyond established thresholds.
For catastrophic weather events such as the northern Michigan ice storm, customers of investor-owned utilities are eligible for the credits if their power has been out for more than 96 hours.
While not enough to fully compensate for losses or hardships experienced by many customers as a result of these outages, this accommodation to customers acts as an accountability metric for the investor-owned utilities paid directly to those affected.
These power outage credits do not apply to customers of electric cooperatives or municipal electric utilities, neither of which are regulated by the MPSC. Electric co-ops are member-owned nonprofits regulated by their own boards of directors.
Similarly, municipal utilities are regulated by their local government agencies. The MPSC does not have the legal authority to require co-ops or municipal utilities to provide outage credits. Thousands of customers in the hard-hit area are customers of Presque Isle Electric & Gas Co-op, Great Lakes Energy, Cloverland Electric Cooperative, or the City of Harbor Springs, which are not subject to MPSC billing rules.
Customers of Consumers Energy and Alpena Power whose outages extended beyond the 96-hour threshold for restoration of service from catastrophic weather are eligible for outage credits. Under rules adopted in recent years by the MPSC, customers of regulated utilities no longer need to request outage credits from their utilities. The credits are automatically added to customer bills once a customer qualifies.
Customers of electric cooperatives or municipal utilities are encouraged to contact their utility with questions they may have, including whether their utility offers credits.