Detroit City Council voted unanimously in September to study whether the city should break away from DTE Energy and build its own public power utility, after storms left more than 450,000 people without electricity. The idea isn’t entirely new for Detroit, which ran its own public electric utility until financial troubles tied to the city’s 2013 bankruptcy forced it to shut down. Now, with outages fresh on residents’ minds, the question is back on the table.
The council’s vote directs the city’s legislative policy division to examine how other Michigan municipalities source their power and report on whether a similar model could work in Detroit, according to ClickOnDetroit. Council President Pro Tem Gabrielle Santiago-Romero pushed for the probe, arguing that the city’s legislative policy division should look closely at how other cities use public power, per reporting from Spartan Newsroom. Santiago-Romero has also said she believes Detroit residents pay a lot for electricity but get little in return, telling the outlet she feels they’re being robbed.
DTE, for its part, has pointed to its own numbers in response to the scrutiny. The company told ClickOnDetroit it has invested more than $1 billion in Detroit’s electric grid over the past five years and restored power to more than 90% of Detroit customers within 48 hours of the storm that triggered the council’s vote. DTE also said the length of Detroit power outages improved by 91% between 2023 and 2025, according to the same report.
A Tornado Adds Urgency to the Push
The storm that knocked out power to nearly half a million people wasn’t an isolated incident driving the conversation. Detroit residents also lost power after a tornado left thousands without electricity, per Spartan Newsroom’s reporting, adding to frustration with the investor-owned utility’s reliability during severe weather…