Blowback from latest DTE outage surfaces on midterm campaign trail

This article first appeared on Planet Detroit and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

An outage left hundreds of thousands of DTE Energy customers without power — many for days — over the July 4 weekend, and candidates in the midterms were quick to channel resident outrage and demand accountability from the utility.

Dearborn and the Downriver communities that were hit hard by the outages are the site of two contested state Senate primaries for open seats.

Abraham Aiyash and Justin Onwenu, Democratic contenders for the open District 1 state Senate seat, both referenced a flaring event at the Marathon Petroleum Corp. refinery in Southwest Detroit that occurred during the power outage, and called for accountability from DTE in social media posts.

“I want folks to realize the impact of the DTE power outage and their neglect in strengthening our power grid,” Aiyash, a former state representative, said in a July 6 post on X, formerly Twitter.

Aiyash drew attention to local children who died of carbon monoxide poisoning linked to generators running at their homes, and residents who were forced to throw away food and medicine because of the outage.

Onwenu, the Detroit director of small business affairs, said: “We need legislators in Lansing who know how to stand up to this madness, bring accountability, and keep our communities safe.”

District 1 includes the Downriver communities of Ecorse, Lincoln Park, Melvindale, River Rouge and portions of Allen Park, Detroit, and Taylor. The winner of the Democratic primary will go up against Republican Patrick O’Connell in November.

State regulators launch investigation of Fourth of July outages

The storms that hit Southeast Michigan the evening of July 3 were a “unique event,” developing quickly and giving the utility little time to prepare, DTE CEO Joi Harris said during a July 7 press call.

Wayne County took the brunt of the damage, with Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Taylor, Grosse Pointe, and parts of Detroit hit especially hard, Harris said.

Roughly 400,000 DTE customers lost power due to the storm, according to the utility.

DTE will learn from the event, Harris said. She acknowledged the utility’s $42 daily outage credit is inadequate to cover the expenses of those who lost power.

“The focus we have is on preventing those types of events from happening altogether,” Harris said.

The storm knocked out power to over 10% of DTE’s customers, qualifying it as “catastrophic” — meaning the credit doesn’t kick in until a customer is without power for four days, Planet Detroit previously reported.

The utility is investing in the grid, replacing aging infrastructure, and moving to a five-year tree trimming cycle, Harris said.

DTE is contending with a “new risk” from falling trees that are outside of power lines’ right-of-way, she said. 

The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), which regulates utilities, announced the launch of an investigation July 16 into DTE, Consumers Energy, and Indiana Michigan Power Co.’s response to the outages.

The MPSC received over 1,500 customer complaints about the three utilities following the outages, with many customers expressing frustration over inaccurate restoration time estimates, and the length of time needed for power restoration in heat and humidity.

The MPSC decides on utility rate hikes, which are brought in case filings by the utilities. Administrative law judges oversee the cases and make recommendations to the commission. 

The governor appoints commissioners to six-year terms.

Onwenu, Aiyash call for rate hike pause

Candidates who spoke with Planet Detroit expressed support for a bevy of utility reforms including freezing utility rate hikes, increasing outage compensation, banning utility shutoffs, and creating public utilities.

Democrat Abraham Aiyash, who is running to represent Michigan Senate District 1, is calling for a five-year freeze on utility rate increases.

This freeze would allow elected officials to be more thoughtful about how to address the state’s reliability problems and high utility rates, Aiyash told Planet Detroit.

“Five years breaks us away from the election cycle, where lawmakers are at the mercy of the fear they have of utility spending,” he said.

DTE spokesperson Ryan Lowry said the company will provide improved reliability and cleaner energy with any increase in utility bills.

The company said in April it will pause rate hikes for at least two years if it secures a “constructive” outcome for its pending $474.3-million electric rate hike request, and an Oracle data center in Saline Township comes online by the end of 2027.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel termed DTE’s announcement a “ransom note.” 

DTE spokesperson Jill Wilmot previously told Planet Detroit: “Nowhere has DTE tied our intention to pause future rate increases to data center approvals.”

Aiyash touted utility accountability legislation he co-authored that was introduced in the Michigan House in 2022. 

The bills would have mandated a $5 hourly outage credit for customers that increased with the duration of the outage, prohibited utilities from passing on the cost of credits to customers in higher rates, and required additional compensation for customers experiencing four or more outages.

Onwenu, Aiyash’s opponent and a former Sierra Club organizer, expressed support for legislation introduced by state Sen. Kevin Hertel (D-St. Clair Shores) to limit utility rate hike requests to every three years. Onwenu said he would also support a five-year freeze on increases.

Residents have are frustrated by utility affordability, especially given other rising costs, as well as poor reliability, Onwenu said.

“We need to start considering the economic justice (and) racial justice aspects of policy,” he said.

This could mean requiring the MPSC to evaluate energy burdens when considering rate hikes or requiring better compensation when residents lose power, Onwenu said. 

An energy burden refers to the percentage of income spent on energy, which is often much higher for low-income households, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Grid is failing residents, candidates say

In District 2, Democrats will choose between state Rep. Erin Byrnes (D-Dearborn) and Abbas Alawieh, the co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement and a former Congressional staffer. 

Alawieh hosted a July 6 press conference with impacted residents and officials in front of the St. Sarkis Towers apartment community for older adults in Dearborn. The complex lost power for several days.

“When there is a systemwide failure like the one our community members who are living with disabilities just experienced, the folks who are most vulnerable in our communities end up being hit the hardest and paying the biggest cost,” Alawieh told reporters.

He was joined by officials including U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit), Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, and state Rep. Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn).

Farhat called for immediate hearings to investigate DTE and other utilities’ handling of the storm.

“Despite years of rate increases and repeated assurances that investments were being made to strengthen and modernize the grid, families have been left without power for several days,” the state lawmaker said in a statement.

Byrnes posted a Facebook video July 5 in which she described damage to utility poles in her neighborhood over the drone of her neighbors’ generators.

“We need to see you out here,” Byrnes said in an appeal to DTE. “You need to invest in our infrastructure, and you need to do it immediately.”

District 2 includes Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, and parts of Allen Park and Detroit. The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Harry Sawicki in the general election.

Canvassers decide Friday on ballot drive aimed at utilities

The most consequential vote for ratepayers this year may not be for a specific candidate, but rather the vote on the Michiganders for Money Out of Politics (MMOP) ballot initiative in November.

The initiative would bar state and local political donations from monopoly companies and other large enterprises doing business with the state.

MMOP organizers say they submitted over 560,000 signatures as part of the effort, well above the 356,958 signatures required for a ballot question. The Michigan Board of State Canvassers will decide Friday whether to approve or deny the signatures.

The Michigan Chamber pushed back on the proposal in July 2025, saying it impinges on free speech and silences the voices of job providers.

The outages earlier this month add to longstanding concerns over DTE’s reliability and affordability, as well as the utility’s influence over state lawmakers, many of whom have received political contributions from utilities.

DTE residential customers paid 19.7 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity in 2023, well above the national average of 16 cents, according to the Citizens Utility Board of Michigan’s 2025 Utility Performance Report. Michigan had the highest residential price per kWh in the Midwest in 2023, the report found.

In 2023, DTE and Consumers Energy had some of the highest outage durations among all investor-owned utilities in the nation, according to CUB.

DTE’s bill growth is among the lowest in the country, and residents’ total bills are in the first quartile nationally and the below state, regional, and national average, according to the utility.

MPSC data shows that DTE’s average restoration time dropped from 2023 to 2025 from roughly 15 hours to about 3 hours. Notably, a historic ice storm occurred in February 2023 that left hundreds of thousands of Michigan utility customers without power for days.

Dearborn candidates look to reform rate-setting, political spending

Alawieh, the co-founder of the Uncommitted movement and former Capitol Hill staffer running to represent Michigan State Senate District 2, said Michigan’s utility regulation needs radical changes.

“The way the law is written now, essentially rates can only keep going up,” he said.

The state needs a mechanism to tie rate increases or decreases to utility reliability, Alawieh said, adding that lawmakers needed to stop shutoffs for nonpayment and address the growing discrepancy between the rates paid by industrial and residential customers.

Byrnes, who is running against Alawieh in the primary, said it took several days for DTE to send a crew to look at damaged power poles next to her house, one of which was sparking.

Byrnes helped draft ratepayer bill of rights legislation that looks to lower residential energy costs, protect residents from paying for CEO bonuses and private jet travel, ban utility political contributions to state lawmakers, and ensure access to rooftop and community solar.

It’s important for lawmakers to break free from utility donations, Byrnes said. Like all lawmakers interviewed for this story, she expressed support for the MMOP ballot initiative.

“In Lansing, money is power,” she told Planet Detroit. “The more money you can raise, the more powerful people believe you are, and the more respect you get shown.”

She also called the Ann Arbor for Public Power effort to replace DTE with a municipal utility “hugely important,” and added it could make it easier for residents to hold their utility accountable.

“I really feel strongly that Michigan residents deserve so much more,” Byrnes said.

DTE’s Lowry previously told Planet Detroit that Ann Arbor’s municipal utility effort could require the city to take on $1 billion in debt, without delivering better reliability or lower bills.