Michigan's Energy Future

The Michigan legislature has spent most of the last year haggling over an energy plan for Michigan without actually passing any plan that would actually help Michigan.  The current House plan includes a mandate that ten percent of Michigan’s electric power comes from renewable energy sources; whereas, the Senate version only requires a watered-down mandate that seven percent of Michigan’s electric power come from renewable resources and allows part of this mandate to be met through energy efficiency.  Both energy plans to some degree eliminate rate subsidization of residential consumers by industrial and commercial customers, place a cap on the percentage of customers that can choose to have their power provided by independent power producers, and provide a guaranteed customer base for new base-load power plants to be built.

As mentioned elsewhere on this website, Michigan should pass a strong renewable portfolio standard.  The House version of the energy plan contains a renewable portfolio standard where ten percent of Michigan’s electricity by 2015 must come from alternative forms of energy.  Ten percent is easily attainable and would save Michigan a great deal of money since wind power promises to be much cheaper than natural gas for the current future.  This is the standard Michigan should include as part of its energy plan.

Eliminating rate subsidization over a period of time is also an issue that needs to be handled as part of Michigan’s energy future in order to encourage new businesses to locate to Michigan.  The elimination of rate subsidization for residential customers by industrial and commercial customers should be done over at least five-year period of time and possibly longer so that residential customers will not be placed in too much of a pinch too soon. 

Lastly, although Michigan may need new base-load power plants in the future there is no reason why we need seven or eight new coal plants immediately.  Only one is needed by 2015 and more than likely much of Michigan’s new load demands in the future can be offset by efficiency gains.  Michigan’s energy plan should focus more on energy efficiency rather than building new base-load power plants.