LANSING — A new report has found that the reliability of Michigan’s electric grid is still among the worst in the nation, with residents suffering longer power outages than any other state.
Michigan also ranked near the bottom of the country in affordability, leaving customers often paying higher rates for worse service.
The Michigan Citizens Utility Board released its report on the state’s electric grid last week, showing continued reliability issues both in and out of extreme weather.
“We’ve made some progress in certain ways, but we still have a long way to go,” said Ed Rivet, executive director of the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum. “I mean we’re not average — we need to be. We need to work hard to get to average, at least.”
The report analyzed data from 2023, the most recent year fully available.
Matthew Bandyk, an energy consultant who worked on the report, says that Michigan stands out in its poor reliability.
In 2023, it took an average of around 12 hours to restore power after an outage in Michigan — that’s more than double any neighboring state.
“You can’t really say it’s due to weather or geography, because states that are just right over the border from Michigan are do are doing a lot better on power outage length,” Bandyk said.
Brian Wheeler, spokesperson for consumers energy, said in a statement that the company is working to improve its reliability and has invested in roadmaps for the future.
“We at consumers energy know we can do better,” he said. “We have mapped out the strategy and tactics that should continue leading to fewer and shorter power outages, and hope other stakeholders will work with us to help us serve Michigan.”
Rivet says that more comprehensive planning is likely needed.
“The idea of — what are you going to do two years from now, three years from now, five years from now, because everything’s kind of being done in a year-by-year manner,” he said.
Michigan improves in its standing when excluding severe weather events, also known as Major Event Days or MEDs — but it still sits in the bottom half of the country in the frequency and duration.
MED’s can vary drastically from year to year — and researchers say that while less consistent, they can be more representative of the actual customer experience.
“This suggests that severe weather events cause outages that overwhelm Michigan utilities’ ability to respond quickly and effectively,” the report said. “As the climate continues to warm, Michigan’s utility customers will suffer increasingly from long outages unless the utilities invest in effective outage prevention and response measures.”