A new report published by the Citizens Utility Board of Michigan found that Michigan ranked among the worst in the nation, out of all 50 states, in terms of energy reliability.
Every year, the board analyzes how Michigan compares to other states in terms of energy affordability and power restoration following an outage.
The 2025 Performance Report found that Michigan ranked 51st out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI), a measure of the average time to power restoration.
It found Michigan ranked 50th in the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), a measure of total outage duration for each customer served.
The report draws data primarily from 2023, which is the most recent data available from the U.S Energy Information Administration.
On average in Michigan, it took about 12 hours to restore power after an outage, over twice as long as in any other neighboring state.
“The biggest problem is power restoration time,” said Matthew Bandyk, a consultant with Synapse Energy Economics who helped develop the report. “Michigan is dead last in the country out of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia on that front.”
The report accounts for outages during major weather events.
Data highlighted by the Michigan Public Service Commission showed a nearly 25% reduction in the duration of power outages between 2019 and 2023, excluding these weather events.
The full press release from the Public Service Commission can be found here.
The report also found that, on average, electricity is more expensive in Michigan than in neighboring states. When examining the per-kilowatt-hour rate, Michigan ranked 41st in the average price of residential electricity, surpassing that of any other state in the Midwest.
When examining electric bills, the Public Service Commission noted data showing that Michigan households pay less for electricity than the national average and less than any of the three states adjacent to Michigan.
“The electric bill tends to be a lot higher in other states because they’re using a lot of electricity. They may use electric for heating, whereas we primarily use gas,” Bandyk said. “But if you look at the per-kilowatt-hour rate that we’re paying for electricity, it’s the highest in the Midwest, and one of the highest in the country.”
The Public Service Commission has taken several actions to improve energy reliability in recent years, including conducting an audit of the equipment and operations of the state’s two largest electric utilities, DTE and Consumers Energy, establishing a framework for penalties for poor performance, and establishing a distribution system reliability webpage to provide more data to the public.
Both DTE and Consumers Energy have made investments to help strengthen the grid over the past two years.
DTE has installed smart devices on the grid to prevent outages, trimmed more than 4,500 miles of trees near overhead electric equipment so far this year, with a target of 6,600 miles by year’s end, and continued to modernize equipment. DTE is committed to reducing outages by 30% and cutting outage time in half by 2029.
At the start of 2025, DTE reported that customers experienced a nearly 70% improvement in time spent without power between 2023 and 2024.
“At DTE Energy, we are building the electric grid of the future that our customers demand and deserve.
Through our five-year, $10 billion plan to improve electric reliability, we’re installing smart devices, rebuilding and upgrading infrastructure, and trimming trees that damage electrical equipment. And it’s working: in 2024, customers experienced 70% less time without power compared to the previous year.”
DTE
In 2024, Consumers Energy invested $63.5 million in more than 1,300 projects, part of a more than $1 billion investment aimed at improving reliability.
“We at Consumers Energy know we can do better, which is why we developed and have committed ourselves to our Reliability Roadmap.
Our long-term blueprint helped deliver meaningful results in 2024 to customers, including a 12% reduction in how long an average customer went without power. We have mapped out the strategy and tactics that should continue leading to fewer and shorter power outages, and hope other stakeholders will work with us to help us serve Michigan.”
Consumers Energy