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Utilities Rates

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Utilities Rates

These are the current utility rates which fund commodity purchases, sustain operations and maintenance, and capital renewal and expansion. They are updated annually for each fiscal year beginning on July 1st.

Explanation of Changes

Utility rates have been approved for Fiscal Year 2024.

Our goal is to provide safe, reliable, and cost-efficient utility services to the campus community. Investments in the Central Power Plant, our distribution system, and incoming DTE service feeds to campus proved their value this past year. While several significant weather events, including a major ice storm in February, significantly impacted the DTE distribution system, the university electric system remained largely unaffected. Over the past ten years, enterprise rates for steam and generated electricity have averaged annual increases slightly over two percent. A few key factors are currently impacting the enterprise:

  • While spot natural gas prices have decreased from last year’s high, the unseasonably warm winter led to significantly lower steam production.
  • As part of the University commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we continue to source 40% of purchased electricity from renewable sources via a Voluntary Purchased Power Agreement (PPA) as part of DTE’s MIGreenPower program.

Utility Enterprise Rates

Steam and electric rates are established at levels to recover all operations and maintenance costs for generation and distribution, reserves for major repairs and replacements, debt, and fuels.

UtilityFY23FY24
Central Power Plant steam (per 1000 lbs)17.40018.790
CPP, North Campus, Ingalls electric (per kwh)0.0950.103

Direct-Purchased Utilities

Utilities purchases, manages, and processes all direct-purchased utilities, which are supplied and metered by an outside utility company and distributed directly to the university customer. These prices fluctuate, and the rates below are our best estimates at this time

Estimated Direct-Purchased utilities costs (Including charges)FY23FY24
Water, Sewer & Storm (per ccu)13.62814.339
Natural Gas (per ccf)0.5030.469
Electric (per kwh)
0.0900.090

The U-M Utility Services Enterprise purchases, manages and processes all purchased utilities. Service charges are applied to direct-purchased utilities to recover overhead and university distribution maintenance.

Service Charges on Direct-Purchased UtilitiesFY23FY24
Administrative (on all utilities) ¹
2.40%
2.40%
Green Power Initiative (PPA) Surcharge ²
4.00%
4.00%
Water, Sewer, Storm maintenance ³
18.00%17.00%
Direct electric maintenance
0.40%0.40%

¹ Examples include salaries, office expenses, computer hardware and software, legal services, & MISS DIG.

² The total annual Green Power Initiative Surcharge premium collected for FY24 remains stable from FY23. Percentages may fluctuate year to year based on forecast campuswide utility usage.

³ Covers costs for infrastructure improvements and the replacement of aging piping.

Historical Utility Rates

Previous years rates can be found on the Historical Utility Rates page.

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