LANSING – Customers of DTE Energy and Consumers Energy can expect to receive smaller bills this year thanks to a ruling made Tuesday by the Michigan Public Service Commission.
The PSC ordered DTE Energy and its gas subsidiary, MichCon, to refund $30.9 million to 2.1 million electric and 1.2 million gas customers. Consumers Energy must refund $25.4 million to its 6.8 million electric and gas customers.
A DTE Energy spokesman said customers will see the refund in the next couple of months as a refund on their bills.
The refund is for money collected from customers to support the Low Income and Energy Efficiency Fund (LIEEF), which was created in 2000 to provide assistance to low-income utility customers who are struggling to pay their bills.
The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled last summer that energy legislation signed in 2008 didn’t include provisions for LIEEF and that the PSC shouldn’t administer the program anymore.
The utilities charged customers a small amount each month to help create and sustain the funds, and the $56.3 million they were ordered to refund was the amount left in the LIEEF fund.
From 2000-09, LIEEF provided nearly $500 million to agencies that distributed money to low-income families to help pay heating bills and do energy-efficiency projects in their homes. Overall, 909,111 people were helped with the grants.
When the program ended, the state Legislature replaced it with the Vulnerable Household Warmth Fund, which split $58 million between the PSC and the Department of Human Services. Those programs ended when the heating season ended March 31.
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