DTE Energy continues to shut off energy to customers who fail to pay their bill while corporate earnings have soared, according to a new report from the Center for Biological Diversity.
The report examined shutoff data for six U.S. utilities, including DTE. It found that in 2024, the company shut off power to delinquent customers more than 150,000 times. In the first nine months of that year, the report says, DTE generated over $1 billion in revenue, up 41% from the previous year. And it passed $600 million of that along to shareholders.
The report further hammers DTE on two major points: the utility’s continued reliance on fossil fuels, particularly its future plans to maintain large natural gas plants; and what the report calls its “unreliability.”
In terms of fossil fuel usage, DTE’s 2022 Integrated Resource Plan details its proposed energy mix through 2045. As of 2023, the company produced around 20% of its power with natural gas; the projection for 2045 is for that to remain basically unchanged.
Selah Goodson Bell, one of the report’s co-authors, was critical of that plan, along with DTE’s continued rate hikes for customers. “This obsession with expensive fossil fuels, and again that knee- jerk reliance on rate hikes, keeps squeezing more and more money out of families who are already being battered by inflation and climate disasters,” he said.
As for reliability, the report cites studies, including a recent Michigan Public Service Commission audit, that show the utility’s record continues to lag its peers. The MPSC called DTE’s record on power outages and restoration times “worse than average among utilities.” Other reports found Michigan to be the second-worst state for power outages from 2000-2021, and the fourth-worst for restoration times. The Center for Biological Diversity also slammed what it calls DTE’s “anti-competitive obstruction of distributed renewable energy” like community solar projects.
Goodson Bell said that with the second Trump Administration now in power in Washington, remedies for these issues are unlikely to come from the federal government, at least for now. But he said there are steps state and local lawmakers and regulators can take, such as demanding that utilities release timely, detailed information about shutoffs.
Ideally, that would be “monthly clear — and ideally zip code-level — utility shutoff data, so you know who is being shut off most [and] where to concentrate your utility assistance,” Goodson Bell said. The report recommends that Michigan also update its “vague temperature shutoff restrictions” to include date- and temperature-based prohibitions on shutoffs.
DTE, for its part, points to its plan to achieve “net-zero” carbon emissions by 2050, including a 62% use of renewables for power generation by that time. The company also defended its “variety of payment assistance options” for struggling customers, including budget-based payment plans.
DTE is one of Michigan Public’s corporate sponsors.
