SALINE TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has asked the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) to reconsider its recent approval of special electricity contracts for a massive artificial intelligence data center planned in Washtenaw County.
In a petition for rehearing filed this week, Nessel challenges the Commission’s handling of the case, which allowed DTE Energy to secure approval, without a formal hearing, for two contracts to serve a 1.4-gigawatt data center, according to a release.
This data center is set to be the largest data center in the country, covering 2.2 million square feet on a 575-acre site in Saline Township, with an additional 476 acres in nearby Bridgewater Township.
The MPSC granted conditional approval of the contracts on December 18, giving DTE 30 days to formally accept the conditions attached to the decision.
At the same time, the Commission denied the Attorney General’s request for a contested case hearing.
Nessel argues that the Commission may have exceeded its enforceability by approving the contracts, “as many of the conditions purportedly put in place by the Commission appear to require only repeated assurances from DTE with no further evidentiary support or commitment, rather than enforceable conditions imposing meaningful requirements on the utility or its customer.”
She said that many of the safeguards intended to protect ratepayers rely largely on assurances from the utility rather than on binding, verifiable commitments.
Nessel also raised concerns about whether DTE can adequately serve as a financial backstop for the project in place of stronger collateral requirements, as directed by the Commission.
The attorney general is continuing to push for a contested case hearing, emphasizing the need to review the heavily redacted contracts in full.
“I remain extremely disappointed with the Commission’s decision to fast-track DTE’s secret data center contracts without holding a contested case hearing,” said Nessel. “This was an irresponsible approach that cut corners and shut out the public and their advocates. Granting approval of these contracts ex parte serves only the interests of DTE and the billion-dollar businesses involved, like Oracle, OpenAI, and Related Companies, not the Michigan public the Commission is meant to protect.
The Commission imposed some conditions on DTE to supposedly hold ratepayers harmless, but these conditions and how they’ll be enforced remain unclear,” Nessel continued. “As Michigan’s chief consumer advocate, it is my responsibility to ensure utility customers in this state are adequately protected, especially on a project so massive, so expensive, and so unprecedented. As my office continues to review all potential options to defend energy customers in our state, we must demand further clarity on what protections the Commission has put in place and continue to demand a full contested case concerning these still-secret contracts.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel
While the Commission has required DTE to accept its conditions within 30 days of the December order, Nessel said that this timeline complicates decisions about whether further legal challenges are necessary to protect DTE customers.
She says the petition for rehearing is intended, in part, to preserve her office’s ability to contest what she views as unclear conditions and legal basis for approving the contracts without a full and transparent review process.
The MPSC released the following statement on Nessel’s request for a rehearing and rejected claims that the DTE contracts weren’t properly reviewed:
“In accordance with established process, the Commission looks forward to considering the Attorney General’s petition for rehearing, just as it considered her arguments in the underlying case. However, the Commission unequivocally rejects any claim that these contracts were inadequately reviewed.
Exercising its role as a knowledgeable, impartial regulator committed to consumer protection, fairness and transparency, the MPSC’s expert professional Staff, Commission Advisory Staff and Commissioners themselves were provided with unredacted DTE Electric special contract documents and reviewed them thoroughly to ensure existing customers are protected. The Commission’s order in this case recognizes the utility’s obligation to serve this customer under Michigan law while requiring the strongest consumer protections for a data center power contract in the country — protections that would not be available under existing tariffs without the Commission’s approval of these contracts.”
MPSC Statement