DTE to give $100 credits to eligible customers with power still off Monday

DTE Energy will issue $100 credits to eligible customers whose power remained off Monday morning, six days after storms pummeled the region. 

"Our teams are working to apply the credits on the accounts of all customers who qualify, and we will be notifying these customers over the next several days," DTE said in an email Thursday.

DTE did not have an estimate of who many customers were eligible  but about 40,000 DTE customers remained without power early Monday, according to the company's outage map. By Thursday afternoon, 1,700 were waiting to have their power restored.

The $100 credit comes after Nesselon Monday publicly called on DTE and Consumers Energy to voluntarily credit customers who went without power and to provide additional support to those have lost food or have had to seek alternative housing. 

“The utility workers for Consumers Energy and DTE Energy are working hard to restore power, and I appreciate those who have worked tirelessly the last several days on behalf of the communities they serve, but these companies also need to work hard to restore trust with their customers,” the attorney general said in a statement. 

The new credit is in addition to $25 DTE offered to customers with power outages for more than 120 consecutive hours. DTE customers eligible for the $100 will receive both credits for a total of $125.

Consumers also is offering a $25 credit to eligible customers. 

The average power bill in Michigan came to $103.59 in early 2020, according to iPropertyManagement, which uses data from the Energy Information Administration and ranks the state 36th in the country for electricity costs.