Is Your Power Company Putting Profits Over Safety?

Do utility companies want consumers to pay higher rates?

Power companies want consumers to pay higher rates as this helps to increase their profits. In early 2025, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC approved a $217 million rate increase for DTE. In April 2025, DTE went back for more – asking the MPSC for another rate hike of $574 million, according to the Michigan Attorney General. 

In March 2025, the MPSC approved a $154 million rate increase for Consumers Energy. 

In May 2025, Consumers Energy filed another request for rate increase with the MPSC. In the “Rate Case Summary” that it filed with the MPSC, Consumers Energy stated: 

“Based on the evidentiary support provided in its upcoming filing, Consumers Energy requests that the Commission authorize the Company to adjust its retail electric generation and distribution rates so as to provide additional revenue in the amount of approximately $436 million annually based on a projected 12-month test year ending April 30, 2027 . . .” 

What is the safety record of the country’s big power companies?

While power companies have enjoyed soaring profits, the public has arguably paid a steep price for their negligence. According to reports, there is a clear pattern of companies failing to maintain equipment, monitor vegetation, or respond to hazardous conditions, resulting in injury, death and property damage.   

Examples include:

• The 2020 Bobcat Fire (Southern California Edison) – In 2023, Southern California Edison (SCE) agreed to pay $82.5 million to the U.S. government for damages caused by the 2020 Bobcat Fire, which burned over 178 square miles of forest land. The U.S. Forest Service’s complaint in the case alleged that the fire was caused by the electric utility company’s failure to trim overgrown vegetation near high-voltage lines. As reported by Reuters, “this is the largest-ever wildfire cost recovery settlement in the Central District of California,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. 
• The 2020 Maui Fires (Hawaiian Electric Co.) – Perhaps the most devastating example of electric utility company negligence occurred in Lahaina, Maui in 2023. The fire, which became the deadliest in U.S. history, claimed over 100 lives and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings. The County of Maui sued Hawaiian Electric Co., alleged that the utility failed to shut off power lines despite red flag wind warnings. Maui accused the company of failing “to properly maintain and repair the electric transmission lines, and other equipment… and to keep vegetation properly trimmed and maintained so as to prevent contact with overhead power lines and other electric equipment,” according to a report by the AP. Reuters reports that Hawaiian Electric – without “admit[ting] to any legal liability” – “agreed to pay roughly half of a more than $4 billion legal settlement that will compensate victims of last year’s deadly Maui wildfires.
• The Camp Fire in Paradise, CA (Pacific Gas and Electric) – In 2020, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) pleaded guilty to charges related to a 2018 fire in Paradise, California, that killed 84 people. The PG&E CEO and President admitted in open court, according to NPR reporting, that “[o]ur equipment started that fire.” According to NPR, a grand jury report had found that PG&E had “repeatedly ignored warnings about its aging power lines and faulty maintenance, and failed to follow state regulations.” NPR reported that the Butte County District Attorney “determined that outdated power lines sparked the November 2018 fire, known as the Camp Fire.” PG&E will pay a $25.5 billion settlement and a $3.5 million fine. 

Are power company profits getting more attention than aging infrastructure?

According to the data, it seems that power company profits are getting more attention than the aging infrastructure. In the U.S., “70 percent of transmission lines are over 25 years old and approaching the end of their typical 50–80-year lifecycle,” according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the U.S. energy infrastructure a D+ on the ASCE’s 2025 Report Card for America’s infrastructure. 

Noting that “more than 70%” of the “country’s power grid infrastructure” is “over 25 years old,” Electrical Contractor magazine observed that as the electrical power grid infrastructure “declines, [it] can wreak havoc by increasing the likelihood of electrocution and other safety issues.”

The Electrical Contractor magazine elaborated by stating:

“The power grid is comprised of transmission lines, power plants and transformers connected to towns and cities throughout the country. Much of the infrastructure that holds the system together hasn’t been upgraded since it was built in the 1930s. At times, it cannot keep up with increasing energy demands, which it was never designed to handle. As such, the risks created by the aging equipment can be catastrophic.”

As for Michigan specifically, a Michigan Public Service Commission audit revealed that the power companies seem to focus more on profit than service and aging infrastructure:

• The time it takes DTE to “restore service” after a power outage was “worse than average among utilities.” 
• “About 45%, or about a million of DTE Electric’s customers, are served by an ungrounded,” older, less powerful system that – unlike more modern systems with more power – “exposes workers and the public to direct higher risk of electric shock hazards.” 
• “Nearly 40% of DTE Electric’s 4.8kV substation transformers were installed between 1924 and 1960, and some of its 13.2 kV transformers date to the 1960s, older than comparable utilities’ transformers. The condition of transformers, and not solely their ages, should drive transformer replacement, and periodic excessive loadings leave DTE Electric with a high substation transformer failure rate.”
• “About 40% of the utility’s circuit breakers and reclosers were installed between 1930 and 1960. Its legacy oil circuit breakers need more intense maintenance and lack in performance compared to modern gas circuit breakers.”
• “More than 13% of DTE Electric customers experienced four or more [electrical power] interruptions in 2023, and nearly 45% experienced interruptions of eight hours or more.”
• The time it takes Consumers Energy to “restore service” after a power outage was “worse than average among utilities.”
• “More than 10% of Consumers’ customers experienced four or more [electrical power] interruptions . . . and more than 25% of its customers experienced [electrical power] interruptions of eight hours or more . . .  in 2023.”

When are electric utility companies responsible for injuries or death?

Electric utility companies may be responsible for injuries or death caused by their actions if you can prove that the company was negligent.

To establish an electric utility company’s negligence, the Michigan Supreme Court in Schultz v. Consumers Power Co. held that the four following elements must be shown:

1. The company “owed a legal duty” to the victim 
2. The company “breached or violated the legal duty”
3. The victim “suffered damages” such as pain and suffering, medical expenses, and lost wages and earnings
4. The company’s “breach” of its legal duty caused “the damages suffered” by the victim

In order to prove you were owed a legal duty, Michigan law requires that your injuries were “foreseeable” to the electric utility company.

In Schultz v. Consumers Power Co., the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that:

1. “The test to determine whether a duty was owed is not whether the company should have anticipated the particular act from which the injury resulted, but whether it should have foreseen the probability that injury might result from any reasonable activity done on the premises for business, work, or pleasure”; and 
2. An electrocution victim “need not establish that the mechanism of injury was foreseeable or anticipated in specific detail. It is only necessary that the evidence establishes that some injury to the plaintiff was foreseeable or to be anticipated.” (See Schultz, footnote 7)