LANSING – Though committee members did not overtly oppose, or support, findings that power plants proposed by Consumers Energy and Wolverine Cooperative were not needed, members of the Senate Energy Policy and Public Utilities Committee did question the Public Service Commission staff’s ability to forecast power needs.

The PSC staff had found that projected demand for the two utilities did not support their claims that they needed to build new plants. But committee members on Thursday noted that the past two reports from the commission and its staff overestimated power demand in the state.

Committee chair Sen. Bruce Patterson (R-Canton Twp.) noted that the 21st Century Energy Plan by former PSC Chair Peter Lark in 2007 had projected 1.2 percent demand growth, while growth had actually been negative for at least the past year and is now projected to remain there for the next year. “If that plan, developed as result of an executive directive, is so erroneous, why should we assume that report to the MDEQ is any more reliable?” he said.

Sen. Dennis Olshove (D-Warren), minority vice chair of the committee, raised concerns that rejecting the plants now could leave the state short of power.

“How would a power company plan given the lead time it takes to build base load? Where’s the point that there’s certainty that we’ll meet the needs in the future?” he said. “I foresee a situation where the economy can turn around and we’re caught flatfooted and we end up importing power again at a higher cost.”

Greg White with the PSC admitted the last two projections to come out of the commission offices (a prior report, a couple years earlier, had projected 2 percent annual growth over the next decade) had been inaccurate, but he said the current economy in the state had also been unforeseen.

“None of us saw what took place over the next two years,” White said. “I thought it (the 21st Century plan projection) was too low. Obviously I was way wrong.”

But he also said there would still be time to build a plant for either utility should demand turn around. A coal plant would take about 5 years to build and a nuclear plant about 10 years, he said. “We’re comfortably within that time horizon at this point,” he said.

PAYMENT ASSISTANCE: The committee reported four bills (HB 4649 , HB 4650 , SB 553 , SB 555 ) that would require the Department of Human Services to provide certain information on public assistance recipients to utilities and to create an electronic payment system for providing bill payment assistance.

The intention of the bill is to allow utilities to more easily find those customers who are behind on payments and would qualify for assistance as well as to make it easier for the utilities to receive that assistance on the customer’s behalf.

The Senate bills were substituted to match the House bills.

The bills are part of a larger, 40-bill package dealing with shut-off protections. The committee discussed a series of bills dealing with standards for municipal utilities, but postponed any action after testimony that the utilities had already adopted model policies that would address many of the issues in the legislation.

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