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The April edition of the MPSC Spotlight has important information for nearly a million Michigan households that benefitted from a federal program to help families pay for home broadband internet, a new MPSC webpage with data on utility electric reliability, and other information.
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The Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), the benefit started during the COVID-19 pandemic that provides discounts for home broadband internet service, is coming to an end, and the MPSC is encouraging the 941,000 Michigan households enrolled in the program to plan ahead.
April is the last fully funded month for the ACP. Beneficiaries should prepare by:
- Checking for messages from your internet provider regarding the wind-down of the ACP and the impact it will have on your internet bill. Your internet provider will let you know when the discount on your monthly bill will end.
- Visit www.fcc.gov/acp to keep up to date regarding announcements from the FCC regarding the wind-down.
- Contact the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) for questions about the wind-down. Customers may call the ACP Support Center at 877-384-2575 or go to affordableconnectivity.gov.
- Check with your current internet provider to see if they offer any special internet offerings for low-income households. If a household would like to continue to receive internet service after the ACP ends, they may stay with their current provider or select a new provider.
The MPSC’s news release has additional information
The MPSC has launched a new webpage where the public can access data about reliability, customer outages and storm response times for rate-regulated Michigan electric utilities, a key component of the Commission’s effort to address challenges to Michigan’s electric grid in a transparent, data-driven way.
The MPSC in Case No. U-21122 directed MPSC Staff to work with utilities to develop a reporting template for reliability data reported by ZIP code and used on the new webpage, with future data also to be aggregated by circuit and Census tract, to give a closer look at the frequency and locations of outages as well as service restoration times.
The page includes a full year of data for 2023, with data on the first quarter of 2024 due to be reported in May. Data will continue to be updated regularly. The webpage went live last year, but Staff has added improvements and refinements including new interactive charts.
You can find the webpage at mi.gov/mpsc/reliability. Watch a video of a presentation by Nick Evans, manager of the MPSC’s electric operations section, on the Commission’s YouTube channel. The presentation begins at the 12-minute mark.
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April is Lineworker Appreciation Month, and we join in saluting the skilled trades teams for Michigan utilities who do the critical and oftentimes hazardous job of maintaining and repairing power lines. The work can be done in bitter cold and blistering heat, in the middle of windy storms, as these crews get service restored or install upgrades to make the grid more resilient.
Do you, or someone you know, have a passion for energy equity work? The MPSC is looking for candidates for a two-year Clean Energy Innovator Fellowship working on developing an equity framework for the Commission’s work on Michigan’s clean energy transition. For more info, go to tinyurl.com/ph7vwvtf. Applications are due May 3.
With April winding down, now is the time to share the importance of calling MISSDIG 811 before any project involving digging begins.
State law requires homeowners, contractors and anyone else with projects that involve digging to call MISS DIG 811 at least three days in advance to have underground energy, telecommunications, and other utilities clearly marked for safety.
Do your part! Call MISS DIG 811 anytime you’re planning to put a shovel in the ground.
- The MPSC approved Indiana Michigan Power Co.’s application for its power supply cost recovery reconciliation for the 12 months ending Dec. 31, 2021 (Case No. U-20805), disallowing the recovery of more than $11.6 million in customer costs. The Commission set the company’s PSCR reconciliation beginning balance at $4,386,719. The Commission disallowed $1,025,628 in costs I&M sought to recover for power generated by the Ohio Valley Electric Corp. through an intercompany power agreement, under MPSC Code of Conduct rules governing transactions between affiliated companies.
- The Commission summarized the most recent report of the MPSC’s Mutual Aid Agreements and Transmission Contingency Planning Workgroup, a collaborative working to develop mutual aid agreements for Michigan’s natural gas utilities and how to best facilitate natural gas transmission contingency planning (Case No. U-20631). The workgroup grew out of recommendations from the MPSC’s Statewide Energy Assessment, the significant effort to make Michigan’s energy systems more secure, reliable and resilient after the 2019 statewide energy emergency in which a fire at a Macomb County compressor station threatened the state’s ability to deliver natural gas during a bitter winter cold snap.
- The Commission approved three clean energy projects laid out in utility integrated resource plans. First was a purchase and sale agreement between Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corp. and Renegade Solar Energy LLC and a planned engineering, procurement and construction agreement between the utility and Invenergy Construction Services LLC (Case No. U-21081). The Renegade Solar Project is a 100-megawatt (MW) solar facility in Delta County. Second was a power purchase agreement (PPA) between Consumers Energy Co. and Tibbits Energy Storage LLC for a 100-MW, 876,000-MWh energy storage facility in Branch County (Case No. U-21090). And finally, PPAs between DTE Electric Co. and Coldwater River Solar LLC and White Pine Grove Solar LLC (Case No. U-21193) for the output, respectively, of the 150-MW Coldwater River Solar Park facility in Branch County and the 100-MW White Pine Grove Solar Park facility in Calhoun County.
Read more about these and other orders in the MSPC’s news release.
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Have a utility complaint, or need help with your utility service? We’re here to help. Submit your complaint or inquiry online or call 800-292-9555.
Tune in to our next regularly scheduled commission meeting on April 25 at 1 p.m.
The mission of the Michigan Public Service Commission is to serve the public by ensuring safe, reliable, and accessible energy and telecommunications services at reasonable rates.
Michigan Public Service Commission
517-284-8100
7109 W. Saginaw Hwy,
Lansing, MI 48917
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