Michigan residents who receive natural gas service from DTE Energy will see slight increases to their bills starting Oct. 1 after state regulators approved a $74.5-million hike to the company's rates on Thursday, Sept. 10.
For the average residential customer using 75 hundred cubic feet of natural gas a month, the rate hike amounts to an increase of $2.87, or 3.34%, on their monthly utility bill, according to the Michigan Public Service Commission, a lower figure than what DTE originally sought in the rate case.
DTE's natural gas company serves about 1.4 million customers in Michigan. In its initial Nov. 2025 application with the MPSC, the company sought a total rate base increase of $237.5 million. In regulatory filings, DTE officials said the company needed
to increase natural gas rates to recover costs related to infrastructure investments and maintain current service reliability.
In a statement provided to the Detroit Free Press, DTE Gas President and COO Renee Tomina said the rate increase will allow the company to continue infrastructure work but "does not include the full level of support we requested for the investments we believe are needed to keep pace with critical system upgrades."
The MPSC is a three-member body tasked with overseeing Michigan's investor-owned utility companies, the largest of which are DTE Energy and Consumers Energy. The agency considers requests from utilities on increasing gas and electric rates for residential and business customers in Michigan.
In recent years, criticism of the utility companies has grown over the frequency of rate hike requests, particularly as severe weather events have become more frequent due to global warming, leading to more power outages. State lawmakers introduced bills in January to ban annual rate increase requests, but the proposals have not advanced through the Legislature.
State law currently allows utilities to file rate increase requests once a year. The typical rate case takes about 10 months to complete, and normally results in the MPSC approving a smaller rate increase than what's originally sought. In July, MPSC Chair Dan Scripps said in a letter sent to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer the state should ban annual rate cases.
"I want DTE gas customers to understand that we did not simply accept the company's request, or even broadly accept categories of spending because they were described as necessary for safety or reliability," Commissioner Katherine Peretick said of the latest natural gas case.
Along with approving the rate increase, the MPSC also raised the low-income assistance credit for DTE natural gas customers from $40 to $58 per month, according to a news release.
Outage credits increased for inflation
Commissioners also voted to raise the credit provided to electric customers who experience lengthy or repeated power outages to $44, a slight bump from the previous $42 but a noticeable increase from the $25 credit that was in place in 2022. In 2023, commissioners increased the credit to $35 and tied it to the Consumer Price Index. The new credit takes effect Oct. 1.
Credits are applied automatically to customers who lose power:
- For 16 hours when less than 1% of a utility's customers have an outage.
- For 48 hours when more than 1% but less than 10% of a utility's customers have an outage.
- For 96 hours when more than 10% of a utility's customers have an outage.
Once an outage lasts long enough for a customer to receive a credit, the customer will be credited for each day the outage continues. Additionally, customers who experience more than six electric service interruptions of at least five minutes in 12 months will receive an outage credit. Once credited, the interruption count resets.
Severe weather events in Michigan have caused widespread power outages this summer — violent storms on July 3 caused 750,000 customers to lose power across the state. More recently, storms including a tornado that touched down on Detroit's east side Sept. 3 knocked out power for over 300,000 residents.
You can reach Arpan Lobo at alobo@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: DTE gets $74.5M increase for gas rates: How it affects your bill
