Michigan electric utilities would report outages with customers' bills

Michigan's Public Service Commission would require all electric utilities to report customer outage totals in a standard format. Each customer's information would include the number and total hours of outages lasting more than five minutes, plus the number lasting less than five minutes. Utilities could put the information on the bill or in a bill insert. Outages lasting less than five minutes would be counted separately from those lasting more than five minutes. Neither definition covers outages lasting exactly five minutes. The totals would cover the customer's billing cycle.

Michigan's Public Service Commission would order a fine of up to $1,000 for each violation of the bill disclosure requirement. The fine would apply to electric utilities that violate the customer bill disclosure rules. The commission would first have to find a violation after notice and a hearing. A customer's statement about an outage and full restoration of service would be sufficient evidence. The utility could challenge it with that customer's meter data.

Each electric utility would submit an annual reliability report that Michigan's Public Service Commission would make public. The reporting duty would cover each electric utility and the circuits in its service area. Reports would identify causes of outages affecting more than 1,000 customers of the utility. Planned and completed tree-trimming miles and completed projects to strengthen the grid or improve reliability would be broken down by ZIP code, city, and township. Reports would list the worst-performing 20% of circuits using measures of how often outages happen and how long they last. Reports would be due March 1 each year. They would cover the previous calendar year and planned tree trimming for the current year.