DTE Energy, Consumers Energy shareholder returns drive up Michigan energy bills: 'It's costing consumers so much money'
planetdetroit.org
Investor-owned utilities like DTE charge ratepayers $50 billion a year in return on equity to benefit shareholders, study says.

Utilities’ high returns on equity outpace riskier stocks and cost the average customer $300 a year, national study finds.

The study: https://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20250102-aelp-ror-v5.pdf

[Investor-Owned Utilities] are granted regional franchises not subject to competition under the rationale that they are “natural monopolies”: their service can be most efficiently provided by a single entity…As investor-owned businesses, IOUs seek to maximize their profits, which often runs headlong into regulators’ goal of achieving just and reasonable rates…Over the last three years, IOU residential electricity rates have increased 49% more than inflation. In contrast, their publicly owned counterparts have increased 44% less than inflation.

  • Delta_V@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    11·
    8 days ago

    What energy company is a natural monopoly?

    edit: are you talking about utilities that produce and distribute energy, or the companies that provide fuel for them? Because a case can be made for mining operations like Exxon & etc to be subject to market competition, whereas natural monopolies like your local electric utility should be publicly owned, i.e. owned by the government, and not have ownership shares traded privately or in public markets.