The disclosure and our analysis
Evidence dates
Evidence: Attorney General petition for rehearing in MPSC case U-22058, dated October 30, 2026; Attorney General news release, October 30, 2026; MPSC news release on the approval, October 1, 2026. Read November 2, 2026. Status is as of October 30, 2026.
What the petition asks for
The petition challenges the Commission's October 1, 2026 order, which it says conditionally approved DTE's special contracts for electric service to a 1 gigawatt data center facility to be built in Van Buren Township and operated by Google. The petition does not say whether the 1 GW is peak demand, contract demand or IT load. [Source 2]
The Attorney General's requests on rehearing, as listed in the petition: [Source 2]
1. **More cost modeling:** order further record evaluation of cost and benefit questions, with DTE required to model the transmission cost categories she says were omitted, and hold the data center customer responsible through the contracts' affordability backstop for any added costs found.
2. **No contract-long aggregation:** reject DTE's standard of weighing costs and benefits over the full contract term, and reject the use of avoided costs realized in assessing the affordability backstop.
3. **Annual reconciliation:** adopt regulatory liability accounting with an annual reconciliation.
4. **Transmission cost tracking:** direct DTE, at a minimum, to work with ITC to capture and report project level transmission costs tied to the data center.
5. **DTE as backstop:** order that DTE's backstop cover all incremental costs of serving the Google data center.
6. **No collateral cap:** reject the cap on the customer's collateral requirement.
If the Commission does not adopt these recommendations, the petition says it should reject the special contracts outright. [Source 2]
The 2035 to 2038 point
The petition quotes the Commission's order as stating that there appears to be agreement that the four years of 2035 through 2038 will produce annual net costs to other customers, due to the need to build a proxy generation resource. The order, as quoted, found that the aggregate impact over the contract term is the key consideration rather than an annual net benefit test. The Attorney General argues that this standard accepts years in which other customers subsidize the data center. That is her characterization. DTE contends the contracts will produce a $1.7 billion benefit to other customers over the 20-year term, as described by the Commission in October. [Source 1] [Source 2] [Source 3]
What was approved on October 1
As described by the Commission, the approved supply agreement has a 20-year term, a minimum bill of 80% of contracted demand, an early termination payment of at least 15 years of minimum monthly charges, and credit and collateral requirements. A separate agreement has Google pay for up to 1,600 MW of renewable generation and 480 MW of battery storage that DTE will own. DTE expects service to begin in December 2027 and reach maximum load by December 2028. Our earlier article covers those terms. [Source 3] [Source 4]
Status
On our status vocabulary, as of October 30, 2026: the DTE and Google special contracts are Approved by the MPSC, with conditions, under its October 1 order. The rehearing petition is pending. The reviewed sources do not give a date for a Commission decision on it. Nothing in them establishes construction, energization or capacity Available to other buyers.
Buyer analysis
This is our analysis. The petition does not change the contract terms today, but it puts the shape of Michigan's large load deals back in front of the Commission. If annual reconciliation or uncapped collateral were adopted, the cost of a hyperscale contract in DTE territory would rise for the customer, and future large loads should expect the same asks.
For colocation buyers in the Detroit region, the practical effect is indirect. Providers that need new DTE service at scale may face longer terms, higher collateral and more cost tracking, and some of that can flow into wholesale and retail colocation pricing. Ask providers whether their own utility agreements carry minimum bills, collateral or reconciliation terms, and when their service dates fall relative to the 2027 to 2028 Google ramp.
