Location
Commission is holding the town hall to give Michiganders a chance to share directly with state regulators their experiences during and after the storms, as well as a chance to hear about what steps the MPSC is taking to address reliability.
Town Hall in Dearborn will take place at Fordson H.S. from 5:30 pm - 8 pm.
[The MPSC also will hold a virtual town hall meeting, livestreamed over Microsoft Teams, March 21, 6-8 p.m. A link to participate through Microsoft Teams will be posted closer to the day of the virtual town hall at the event’s webpage.]
Commissioners and MPSC Staff will be on hand. Commissioners will make brief opening remarks on steps the MPSC is taking to upgrade the state’s power grid and make it more resilient against increasingly severe year-round storms that are happening more frequently as the state’s climate changes and will reserve the rest of the time to listen to comments from attendees.
Efforts so far have included directing utilities to step up their efforts to trim more trees on a faster rotation. Early indications are that areas where these efforts have been focused are seeing fewer outages, and the outages are of shorter duration.
The Commission is preparing to launch independent, third-party systemwide audits of the electricity distribution systems of both DTE Electric and Consumers Energy to identify shortcomings, best practices, and parts of the system for targeted investment. The MPSC expects to post a request for proposals for the audits soon, with preliminary findings released before the end of 2023 and a final report sometime in 2024.
In addition to attending the in-person or virtual town halls, written comments also may be submitted to the MPSC by mail to Executive Secretary, Michigan Public Service Commission, P.O. Box 30221, Lansing, MI 48909, or by email to mpscedockets [at] michigan.gov.
For information about the MPSC, visit www.michigan.gov/mpsc, sign up for its monthly newsletter or other listservs. Follow the Commission on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
