Lansing, Michigan – A new Google data center in Michigan could bring major business to DTE Electric. But who pays if the cost of supplying that electricity turns out to be higher than expected?
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel fears the answer could be ordinary customers already struggling with their utility bills.
The concern centers on a 20-year arrangement involving billions of dollars. According to Nessel, the contracts could leave Michigan households and businesses covering certain costs of serving Google’s massive data center while the utility relies on projected benefits that might take years to materialize.
Nessel recently filed a petition for rehearing, challenging the Michigan Public Service Commission’s approval of special contracts between DTE and Google for a hyperscale data center in Van Buren Township.
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In her filing, Nessel argues that DTE failed to meet its legal obligations to demonstrate that the agreements adequately protect existing customers. She also accuses the commission of applying incorrect review standards and accepting contract provisions without sufficient justification.
A central dispute involves how the contracts measure costs and benefits.
Rather than requiring annual comparisons, the commission accepted DTE’s proposal to evaluate the financial effects across the entire 20-year agreement.
Nessel argues this approach could allow losses in individual years to be offset against projected gains decades later.
The commission itself acknowledged that other DTE customers would subsidize the data center for at least four years, from 2035 through 2038.
“The most shocking part of these contracts is that DTE and the MPSC are seemingly signing off on unknown ratepayer costs to support the Google data center, as long as DTE’s benefit projections can keep pace for 20 years,” Nessel said.
Her petition calls for annual accounting and reconciliation of costs and benefits, stronger financial protections, and mechanisms ensuring Google and DTE remain responsible for expenses associated with the project.
Nessel also challenges a commission-approved collateral cap restricting the financial liability of Google and its parent company, Alphabet. Another unresolved concern involves transmission costs that she says DTE did not adequately include in its financial assessments.
The dispute follows similar concerns raised over DTE contracts involving an Oracle and OpenAI data center in Saline.
“These are massive, twenty-year, billion-dollar contracts between one of the wealthiest businesses on the planet, and one of the most powerful companies in the State,” Nessel said.
The attorney general wants the commission to reconsider its decision in case U-22058.
Her position is clear: regulators should impose stronger protections against shifting costs onto existing customers or reject the contracts entirely.