Michigan AG Opposed Utility Company’s Request to Be Waived from Providing Required Outage Credits

APRIL 5, 2024

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel intervened in a proceeding before the Michigan Public Service Commission in which Upper Peninsula Power Co. requested to be permanently waived from certain aspects of MPSC’s requirement to provide credits to customers who experience more than five power outages in a year. MPSC’s rule also requires companies to track its power outages so that the credit requirement can be enforced. In its request, Upper Peninsula Power Co asked to be waived from this requirement so that it can count multiple outages during catastrophic conditions as a single outage. AG Nessel explained that this “could potentially skirt and undermine the amended service quality rules set in place just last year” and called the company’s “insistence on a permanent waiver” “troubling.”