UPPCO Voluntarily Withdraws Waiver Request for Outage Credits

UPPCO withdraws its request for a permanent waiver following intervention by the Michigan Attorney General’s office. Yesterday Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that the Upper Peninsula Power Company has voluntarily withdrawn its request for a permanent waiver that would count multiple power outages during catastrophic conditions as a single outage. This would have resulted in the company issuing fewer repetitive outage credits under the amended service quality rules implemented in 2023. In April the Michigan Attorney General intervened deeming that UPPCO’s request was unreasonable and unnecessary. In response to the withdrawal, Nessel has requested the Michigan Public Service Comission ensure UPPCO has an effective process in place to promptly evaluate all outages eligible for credits under the SQR. The request also tasks the commission with ensuring that the company has issued billing credits in a timely fashion backdated April 10th, 2023. Nessel emphasized to the company to not attempt to recover these supplemental credit costs in future rate cases. The state Public Service Commission will make a final decision on the resolution.