Let's Talk About Rates

Published by Terry Rubenthaler on Friday, May 9, 2025 in Electric

I started working for MEC almost 30 years ago. As an engineer, I have always been intimately involved in restoring power after storms, and some of those storms definitely stuck with me. I remember the summer of 1998, when it seemed like we worked every weekend. I remember the tornadoes of Oct. 24, 2001, that started near Niles, went through Cassopolis, then Marcellus, and then Schoolcraft. 2011 was our worst storm year yet, with an ice storm in February, tornadoes in May, and a derecho in July. And who could forget the ice storm of Thanksgiving week 2013? My colleagues even named a storm after me after I regrettably said, “We haven’t had a big storm in a while.” They dubbed it “Windstorm Terry.”

I have worked on a variety of storms throughout the years and agree with the experts that they seem to be getting more frequent and severe. Take March 30, 2025, for example, when the worst windstorm in my time at MEC started near Edwardsburg and moved throughout our service area. We set several new “records” that week that I hope are never broken, including replacing 140 broken poles and coordinating 25 different line crews. I am happy to report that everyone was restored safely with no injuries in five days. The MEC team’s dedication and ability to quickly assess needed resources to ensure restoration went as swiftly as possible and is something to be proud of.

There was one additional record that was set that I am sure will be broken. This storm cost MEC almost $2 million. I remember when a big storm cost $100-$200 thousand, and now it’s 10 times that amount.

Seven-figure storms are yet another example of increased costs and new challenges that our industry faces, which brings me to the subject of rates. I know a rate increase is not the news you want to hear, but here we are. While we held off on an increase in 2024 and even lowered the power cost adjustment on your bill, the time has come to implement a rate increase on the distribution charge.

To put it simply, the cost to provide service has gone up, but our growth in sales has been stagnant. As a result, MEC’s board of directors approved a 5% rate increase to start on July 1. For a customer who uses 1,000 kWh per month, the increase averages out to about $9 per month.

Rate increases are not something we take lightly. We do a lot of comprehensive analyses and have several discussions with leadership and the board before we make any decision. And yes, sometimes we do the research and determine we don’t need to do an increase, as we did last year. However, continued increases forced us to make the decision to implement one in 2025.

There is something else to be aware of when it comes to our rates. While we all love our rural space and the fact that it’s shielded from urban sprawl, it does cost more to provide a reliable, modern electric grid in our rural areas. Our neighboring investor-owned utilities average about 30 customers per mile. We have about nine, with about 4,000 miles of line and 100,000 poles to maintain.

However, I’m happy to report that the investments in maintenance and upgrades we’ve made over the years are paying off. In 2024, even with two separate tornado events, our system enjoyed 99.9% reliability overall. I’m very proud of that. This means that even though we face challenges, we’re building our system so that we can leave the record breaking for the Olympics.