The three commissioners, who approved the 6.4% rate increase unanimously after deliberating the case behind closed doors under an exemption to the Open Meetings Act, stressed that many of the approved expenditures are aimed at improving DTE’s distribution system to reduce both the number and duration of power outages.
The hefty rate hike request came just as both DTE and Consumers Energy were about to face intense scrutiny over their responses to storms in late February and early March that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands, in some cases for many days.
Peretick said the combined increase over two years is about 7.2%, compared to an inflation rate of about 6.4% over that time period.
Further reading…
From the Detroit News’ article…