Decision On Fate Of $1 Billion DTE Natural Gas Plant Looms

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What Happened:The clock is ticking on the future of DTE Energy’s $1 billion natural gas boondoggle, with a decision expected by Friday.

Links on the Michigan Public Service Commission website to rebuttal testimony over the next three days are broken, so the public doesn’t have access to them.

Solar advocates across the country are watching what happens in Michigan to see if the aggressive tactics will succeed in stopping the plant.

Proposed natural gas plants are increasingly being denied in various states as unnecessary, particularly in solar-friendly states like California and Arizona. But the DTE Energy plant would be the first serious test of the idea outside of those states.

SolarWakeup’s View:  In what has become a battle between the forces of a dominant utility and the solar industry, the fate of DTE Energy’s proposed $1 billion natural gas plant could be decided as late as Friday. And don’t think for a second solar advocates around the country aren’t hanging on this decision like a cliffhanger on the season’s finale of This Is Us.

After all, the Michigan solar industry needs a win after watching net metering destroyed last Wednesday by the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), replaced by an inflow/outflow system designed to penalize solar users and remove the traditional one-to-one net metering program and leaving solar consumers open to the tender mercies of a fee concocted by the utilities.

In addition, the MPSC would have rubberstamped the plant nearly a year ago if they could have. The only reason construction hasn’t already started is the overwhelming opposition raised by the solar industry and rallied by groups like Vote Solar (who has intervened in a non-solar case for the first time) and Power Up Michigan.

That last note is important: It’s one thing to oppose rate changes and other policy decisions in support of solar. It’s quite another to raise objections to utilities using other forms of energy instead. If solar can get a victory in Michigan, expect other state solar advocacy groups to follow suit.

This article was edited at 4:18 pm on 4/24/2018 to correct that Michigan’s disastrous net metering dismantling happened on Wednesday, not Friday as the article originally stated.

This article was edited at 9:29 am on 4/25/2018 to reflect the rubberstamping was more an aspiration than a reality, given that the MPSC had to wait a year before approving the plant. To reiterate, the deadline for approval is Friday.

More:

Coalition Delivers 10,000 Michigander Letters Calling on DTE to Drop Its Gas Plan and Choose Clean Energy (Vote Solar)

Power Up Michigan

Michigan Public Service Commission