nofs proos

Sen. Mike Nofs, R-Battle Creek (left) and Sen. John Proos, R-St. Joseph (right) discuss the latest iteration of their energy legislation at a roundtable with reporters on Oct. 25, 2016.

(Emily Lawler | MLive.com)

LANSING, MI - The Michigan Senate is teeing up an energy vote for shortly after the election, sponsors of bills to overhaul the state's energy policy said Tuesday.

Sen. Mike Nofs, R-Battle Creek, said he has been working on energy legislation for more than two years and was informed the Senate will take it up Nov. 10, and "hopefully pass it that day."

New drafts of Senate Bills 437 and 438 aim to smooth that passage by retaining electric choice; increasing competition in a utility planning process; and earning key support from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a business group that had not supported previous iterations.

"It is a dramatic improvement over the bill that was reported out of committee," said Michigan Chamber President and CEO Rich Studley at a roundtable discussion Tuesday with Nofs, Sen. John Proos, R-St. Joseph, and Citizens for Michigan's Energy Future Senior Energy Adviser Steve Transeth.

The Chamber was looking for bills that preserved energy choice - shorthand for a provision in Michigan's current law that allows 10 percent of the load to be serviced by Alternative Electric Suppliers that are not an incumbent utility like DTE or Consumers Energy. It's a provision most often used by big entities like businesses and schools.

The latest version of the bill allows that 10 percent to continue to be serviced by alternative suppliers, said sponsor Nofs. It also grandfathers in businesses who are already using alternative suppliers, allowing them to continue getting energy from those companies if they expand, even if that means alternative suppliers exceed 10 percent of state's load.

But the changes haven't satisfied everybody. Energy Choice Now, a group advocating for energy choice, said the bill makes the state's choice program unaffordable through its capacity requirements.

"Choice gets killed in SB 437 by excessive charges and competitive suppliers (AES) having to participate in costly and duplicative state and federal programs," said Energy Choice Now spokeswoman Maureen McNulty Saxton in an email.

Michigan's incumbent utilities, DTE and Consumers, have argued for the elimination of energy choice because of reliability concerns.

The state's biggest utilities, DTE and Consumers, have pushed the legislature to reconsider choice to make Michigan's energy grid reliable, arguing that the state will need more capacity as the big utilities retire coal plants under federal rules.

The most recent version of the bill would set up three ways for an alternative energy supplier to back up its generation, Transeth said. They could either build their own generation, contract for generation or pay incumbent utilities a capacity charge.

"They just have to show that in some firm capacity that they're going to be able to service their contractual liability to their customers," Transeth said.

Energy Choice Now argues that the bill does not keep choice. But Studley said he and the Michigan Chamber wouldn't be supporting the bill in its latest iteration if that were true.

"We support the bill because we're confident that it sustains choice," Studley said.

The bill would have to pass the Senate and the House to make it to Gov. Rick Snyder's desk. The House has its own energy proposal, but it's been stalled without a floor vote for nearly a year.