MPSC highlights improvements to reliability performance

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Data from Citizens Utility Board of Michigan report shows outage duration down nearly 25% since 2019 when controlling for weather even as Michigan households pay less for electricity than neighboring states

The Michigan Public Service Commission highlighted recent data from a report issued by the Citizens Utility Board (CUB) of Michigan showing significant improvement in reliability performance among Michigan utilities, including a nearly 25% reduction in the duration of power outages between 2019 and 2023 when controlling for weather. The report shows ongoing reliability improvements, including reduced outage duration in each of the last three years, and four of the last five. Indeed, this year’s report shows the best base reliability performance in the seven years that CUB has published its annual Utility Performance Report.

According to CUB’s 2025 Utility Performance Report, when excluding major event days, Michigan utility customers experienced 162.3 minutes of outages in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which CUB uses as the source for its report. That is a reduction of more than 23% from the 211 minutes of power outages experienced by the average Michigan utility customer in 2019, which also excludes major event days. As a result, the average utility customer experienced 48.7 fewer minutes of outages in 2023 than in 2019 when controlled for weather.

The base reliability metric used by the industry is known as the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), minus Major Event Days (MEDs). This measures the duration of outages across a utility’s system, when controlling for weather-related major event days. The data used by CUB in its annual Utility Performance Reports shows a clear trend of improving reliability under this metric:

• 2023: 162.3 minutes
• 2022: 165.6 minutes
• 2021: 177.9 minutes
• 2020: 167 minutes
• 2019: 211 minutes
• 2018: 185 minutes
• 2017: 179 minutes (the first year CUB published its report)

Along with improved reliability performance, CUB’s report also shows the Commission’s ongoing focus on affordability is having an effect, with Michiganders paying less for their electricity as a percentage of income in 2023 than they did the previous year. The CUB report notes that electricity expenditures in Michigan represented 2.157% of median income in 2023, down from 2.284% in 2022.

In addition, the CUB report shows that Michigan households pay less for electricity than the national average, and less than any of the three states adjacent to Michigan. The following is the data from the CUB report on 2023 electricity expenditures per household:

• Michigan: $1492 
• Wisconsin: $1544
• Ohio: $1578
• Indiana: $1747

The CUB report also shows that the average Michigan household spent less on electricity in 2023 than it did in 2022, when the average household electricity expenditure was $1530.

“On both reliability and affordability, the data contained in the most recent CUB report show real progress is being made,” said MPSC Chair Dan Scripps. “But the report also shows that Michigan utilities continue to struggle with extreme weather events, including the ice storms that took place in 2023. The MPSC has been laser-focused on reliability in recent years, and this is no time to rest.”

Among other actions to improve reliability in recent years, the Commission:

• Conducted a first-of-its-kind comprehensive audit of the equipment and operations of the state’s two largest electric utilities, DTE Electric Co. and Consumers Energy Co. The Commission outlined performance improvements it expects the utilities to focus on, including stepped-up tree trimming, reducing the number of unguarded downed power lines after storms, and more.
• Established a framework for penalties for poor performance — along with incentives for superior performance. The framework includes a sharp focus on metrics measuring the average length of customer outages, the length of time utilities take to restore power both after storms and in calm weather conditions, the number of customers experiencing four or more outages per year, and the utilities’ worst-performing circuits.
• Required utilities to file regular distribution plans to add more information and context to specific investments proposed by utilities, allowing the Commission and others greater insight into the utilities’ plans and their efforts to identify the most cost-effective strategies to improve distribution performance.
• Established a new distribution system reliability webpage to provide more data to the public in a transparent, accessible way. Multiple metrics of reliability data for each electric utility regulated by the MPSC are available and regularly updated. The Commission’s website includes many of the same metrics used by CUB, but updated as recently as June of this year (compared to the 2023 data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration used as the basis for the CUB report).

More recent data found on the Commission’s website shows continued progress even beyond that reported by CUB. As noted in the Commission’s 2024 annual report, Consumers Energy reported that the average customer experienced 21 fewer power outage minutes in 2024 compared to 2023, and more than 93% of customers experiencing power outages had their service restored in less than 24 hours in 2024, up from 87% in 2023. DTE Electric reported that its customers experienced a nearly 70% reduction in time spent without power in 2024 compared to 2023, attributed to grid improvements and less extreme weather.

“While we know there’s a lot of work left to do, the actions taken to date are having a positive impact on the performance of the grid,” said MPSC Commissioner Katherine Peretick. “We fully expect more improvements in the coming years as Michigan utility customers reap the benefits of our intense focus on reducing the number of power outages in Michigan and how long those outages last.”

Michigan’s work to improve reliability was featured in a recent report by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which outlines the breadth of the work the MPSC is doing to ensure Michigan utility customers continue to see improvements that mean fewer outages, faster service restoration, and fewer downed power lines being left unattended after storms.

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