Consumers Energy

More than 700,000 utility customers lost power in the wake of Wednesday's winter storm, mostly blamed on accumulating ice and high winds.

The Sierra Club finds that 37 out of 50 electric utilities it tracks in the U.S. are either doing very poorly, or failing, on taking necessary steps to meet their climate pledges to reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2030. \DTE Energy is one of those that received an "F."

The Michigan Public Service Commission has ordered a third party audit of the response of DTE Energy and Consumers Energy to storm-related outages, saying other MPSC attempts to reduce frequency and duration of outages haven't worked.

Powerful storms knocked out electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Michigan Monday. We spoke to DTE Energy and Consumers Energy about the cleanup and estimates for when power will be restored.

The Monday evening storms brought 70 mile per hour winds that caused mass outages throughout the state, including most of Metro Detroit.

Consumers Energy says improvements in its tree-trimming program as well as use of technology enabled it to restore power within 24 hours to nearly all 90,000 people affected by a recent storm.

Consumers had originally asked for permission to add a total of $278 million in additional charges to customers. The settlement brings that number down to $170 million. The average Consumers residential customer will see rates increase by 5.8%.

Consumers Energy says it will need from 60,000 to 70,000 acres of land to achieve its planned rollout of 8,000 megawatts of electricity from solar by 2040.

Environmental and ratepayer advocate groups largely praised the proposed settlement, noting that it puts Consumers on a faster track toward more renewable energy sources, primarily solar. The company says 90% of its energy generation will come from renewable sources by 2040.

Consumers Energy says it will have net zero carbon emissions from production and utilization of natural gas by the year 2050, including customers and suppliers