November 25, 2003

The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) today issued an order approving proposed administrative rules that establish service quality and reliability standards for electric distributions systems. 

“These proposed standards provide increased protection for electric customers in Michigan by defining unacceptable levels of performance,” said MPSC Chair J. Peter Lark.   “Utilities will have available to them financial incentives for exceeding these rules, and they will face stiff penalties for failing to meet them.  With these rules, Michigan electric customers have some of the best standards in the nation protecting them.”

The Customer Choice and Electricity Reliability Act of 2000 (Public Act 141) requires the MPSC to adopt generally applicable service quality and reliability standards for distribution systems of electric utilities and other entities subject to its jurisdiction.  The standards include standards for service outages, distribution facility upgrades, repairs and maintenance, telephone service, billing service, operational reliability and public and worker safety.

Highlights of the rules approved today include:

• Establishing unacceptable levels of performance, including deadlines for restoring electric service that has been interrupted under both normal conditions (within eight hours to not less than 90 percent of its customers experiencing service interruptions) and catastrophic conditions (within 60 hours to not less than 90 percent of its customers experiencing service interruptions); wire down relief requests (within 240 minutes in most urban metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and within 360 minutes in rural areas); setting standards and deadlines for answering customers’ calls; responding to complaints (90 percent or more within three business days); reading meters and new service installations (completing 90 percent or more of new service installations within 15 business days).

• Creating financial incentives and penalties, including having the MPSC authorize a financial incentive if a utility exceeds all of the service quality and reliability standards; penalties for failure to restore service during normal conditions (the greater of a customer credit of $25 or the customer’s monthly customer charge for failure to restore service within 16 hours after an interruption); penalties for failure to restore service during catastrophic conditions (the greater of a customer credit of $25 or the customer’s monthly customer charge for failure to restore service within 120 hours after an interruption); penalties for repetitive interruptions of the same circuit (the greater of a customer credit of $25 or the customer’s monthly customer charge when a customer experiences and notifies the utility of more than seven interruptions in a 12-month period).

and

• Providing for waivers and exceptions, including allowing the utility to petition the MPSC for a permanent or temporary waiver or exception from these rules when specific circumstances beyond its control render compliance impossible or when compliance would be unduly economically burdensome or technologically infeasible. 

Today’s order approves the proposed administrative rules governing service quality and reliability standards.  The rules now go to the Legislative Service Bureau and the Office of Regulatory Reform for their formal approval.   Upon their approval, the rules will be transmitted to the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules.

To view a copy of the entire rules on the MPSC Web site, please go to the below link:

http://www.cis.state.mi.us/mpsc/orders/electric/2003/u-12270rules_11-25-2003.pdf

The MPSC is an agency within the Department of Consumer and Industry Services.

Case No. U-12270

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