Customer Choice

In June 2000, Public Act 141 (Customer Choice and Electric Reliability Act) was established in the state of Michigan. This Act addresses many issues related to regulated electric utility operations, including electric restructuring.

Part of electric restructuring is the process of itemizing or unbundling electric service into three major service components:

• Generation - actual production of electric energy
• Transmission - bulk power delivery from the generation stations to local delivery point
• Distribution - delivery of energy to the end-user's

Great Lakes Energy commercial/industrial customers with electric demands of 200 KW and greater are currently eligible.

Eligible members can choose who they purchase generation service from. There are multiple generation service providers, called Alternative Electric Suppliers (AES), licensed by the Michigan Public Service Commission, to sell energy to end-use customers.

The goals of providing electric restructuring are to offer electric customers the ability to choose whom they purchase a portion of their electric services from and to create a more competitive generation service market with hopes of reduced electric rates. There is certainly no guarantee that purchasing generation services from an AES will result in a reduction in overall electric cost.

Great Lakes Energy customers will not be required to choose a different generation service provider. All electric customers may remain a "bundled/all services" customer of their present utility.

Please continue to check our website for updated information on this topic. For more information related to electric restructuring, please visit the Michigan Public Service Commission's web site by clicking on the following link:

http://www.cis.state.mi.us/mpsc/electric/restruct/index.htm.

For more information on electric customer choice for larger users, click on the link below.

Rates, Rules, Regulations and Bylaws