Electricity Rates Going Up in Michigan While Common Sense Is Going Down!!

DTE Energy in Michigan has announced that beginning in March 2023, they will introduce time-of-day rate changes.

If you run your dishwasher or air conditioner or do your laundry in off-peak hours, you can benefit from a lower electric rate. Off-peak hours are 20 hours during the week and all weekend.

However, peak hour rates will be charged for four hours during the weekday from 3 pm to 7 pm.

Peak-hour rates will also vary depending on the time of year.

Here is the breakdown:

October-May – rates are 16.75cents per kWh for Peak Hours
June-September – 20.98cents per kWh for Peak Hours
Off-peak hours- 15.45 cents per kWh.

What is their reasoning for these rate changes? Demand on the electric grid is growing with more smart homes, electric vehicles, and a more “device-driven” world that we live in. It will also help to prevent brownouts. There is also concern that utilities need to combat falling revenue. Various states have adopted time-of-use pricing (TOU), such as California, Massachusetts, and Arizona.

DTE customers will pay less for electricity for usage during off-peak hours. However, they will pay 35% more during the hours of 3 pm to 7 pm on weekdays from June through September. And they will pay 8% more from October to May.

Michigan already has one of the highest rates in the nation. Hawaii has the highest.

Natural gas is one of the primary energy sources used to generate electricity. According to the Energy Information Administration, it accounted for 38.3% of electricity generation in 2021. If the price of gas goes up, it affects the price of electricity.

So, to understand electricity, let’s talk about gas.

The war between Russia and Ukraine has affected natural gas prices. Russia is a major natural gas producer, and Europeans depend heavily on Russian gas delivered through pipelines. In response to the Europeans rallying around Ukraine in sending them weapons and imposing sanctions, Putin cut off the gas supply to Poland and Bulgaria. Putin then cut off gas flow through the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, ostensibly due to a pipeline leak. Gas flow has resumed but at 40 percent of its capacity. Fortunately, due to warmer weather in the winter and leftover stocks of gas amassed from last year, a major energy crisis in Europe was averted. And since the war began, Europeans have looked to liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US to reduce their dependence on Russian gas.

To recap, the constantly repeated and only explanation for the huge rise in US gas prices from the Biden-aligned media lackeys is the Russian-Ukraine war.

It goes something like this:
Russian cuts off oil/gas to Europe
Europe has to get it from OPEC or the US
Demand outstrips supply, and prices go up accordingly

But why is our supply limited in the US?

The blame can be laid at the feet of the Biden administration. Trump had the US on a path to energy independence. Biden reversed that with the shutdown of US pipelines and oil and gas leases on federal lands when he took office. All part of his war on fossil fuels and promotion of green energy. He resumed leases, however, when gas prices and inflation became a political liability for him in the spring of 2022, just in time for the midterm elections also. In addition, he released one million barrels of oil daily from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for 180 days, and a lot of it was sent to Europe. The intent, again, was to lower the “Putin-generated” high US gas prices. How does depleting our supplies further by sending them to Europe help the pricing dilemma in America? And this tapping into the SPR was the largest ever in history. The Strategic Oil Preserve is an emergency stockpile of petroleum, the largest such supply in the world. It is stored in underground tanks (actually 60 underground salt caverns) in Louisiana and Texas. The SPR was intended to maintain a reliable source of energy in the event of a catastrophe, not to give a floundering president political cover for his misguided and harmful policies. The reserve is now at a dangerous 40-year low level.

Biden also went begging for more oil from OPEC. Their response was if you want more oil, pump it yourself!

Notice that “green” Europe has had to increase the use of nuclear options for energy use by delaying the decommissioning of nuclear plants. The same applies to their coal plants.

What about electricity generated through green methods, i.e., wind turbines and solar farms? They can help reduce energy prices, but they cannot be depended upon for use on demand. Only natural gas can be used to respond to sudden peaks in consumption across the grid.

So, when the chips are down, fossil fuels have to come to the rescue! Imagine that!! Are any political experts paying attention to the idea of Energy Security, as experts have warned about for years? Why do we allow an enemy such as Russia to hold all the cards in energy supplies? For that matter, why do we allow a communist nation such as China to hold power over us in the manufacturing sector?

So, when you try to decide when you turn on your dishwasher this summer or the air conditioning, remember how we got into this mess. The green media elites keep telling us to curb demand. But what the heck have they done to destroy access to our supply? In 2016, CNN noted that America has more untapped oil than any other country on the planet. Not even carbon-neutral and readily accessible nuclear energy is accepted by the “greenies.” US and EU policymakers need to be frank with their public. Even if renewable energy source buildout is accelerated, it cannot substitute for fossil fuels anywhere near the speed required to make up for shortages in the oil and gas supply. Even more contradictory, weather-dependent wind and solar power require other energy sources, yes, natural gas and nuclear power, to deliver a steady supply of electricity to homes and businesses.

If you get too hot this summer from 3 pm to 7 pm and have the urge to turn on your AC unit, just remember what the environmentalists really think of you:

“Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.”- John Davis, editor of East First! Journal

A guest post by Becky Behrends, M.D. and Vice President of Research for Michigan Citizens for Election Integrity (MC4EI.com)