ANN ARBOR — Ann Arbor’s city staff is proposing City Council set aside $1 million for the next phase of study as the city considers a takeover of DTE Energy locally.
That figure was included in a budget presentation to council on March 11 as officials discussed priorities for the coming year, including giving further consideration to forming a municipal energy utility to acquire DTE’s assets within the city.
“This is a request in the budget to do the phase-two study to get an appraisal of DTE’s assets,” said Brian Steglitz, public services administrator.
“We estimate that could cost upwards of seven figures,” he said of the next round of study. “This will be an important step if the community at some point decides to bring a ballot initiative together to look at moving forward with the formation or the exploration of a public energy utility for Ann Arbor.
City-hired consultants completed a phase-one feasibility study in 2023 at a cost of about $500,000 and broadly estimated a takeover of DTE could cost the city anywhere from $281 million to $1.15 billion.
Ann Arbor for Public Power, a group that has been advocating for a city takeover of DTE, now contests the findings of the phase-one study, arguing it vastly overestimated the high-end acquisition costs and made other errors, according to an independent legal analysis. The group also disagrees with the consultants’ finding there isn’t a plausible path to forming a full-scale municipal energy utility before 2030.
While a city takeover of DTE in Ann Arbor is likely years away if it happens, in the meantime city officials are considering asking voters in November to form a smaller-scale utility known as a sustainable energy utility to supplement DTE service in the city with new investments in local renewable energy.
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