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What Happens When Data Centers Come to Town?
July 2025
The rapid growth of data centers, with their enormous energy and water demands, requires targeted policy interventions to mitigate environmental impacts and protect local communities. A new report by the University of Michigan’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy program at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy outlines steps that local and state governments can take as the pressure to build more data centers increases.
The policy recommendations are relevant to both states that have enacted tax incentives to lure data centers, as well as states that are considering those incentives.
Energy Equity Project Report: DTE and Consumers Reliability
2024
Grid reliability is exceptionally poor across the state of Michigan. On average customers in the state experience 3x the outage duration compared to the national average. DTE Energy and Consumers Energy (CE) are the largest utilities in Michigan, cumulatively servicing 86.5% of all customers in the state. There are clear reliability dispari0es in the DTE and Consumers service territories. DTE’s census tracts with the lowest reliability areas (worst 25% of census tracts) experience 2.4x as many outages and their average outage duration is almost 3x longer than the most reliable areas (best
25% of census tracts). Consumers’ census tracts with the lowest reliability areas experience 2.5x as many outages and their average outage duration is 3x longer than the most reliable areas.
Gas to Electric: Equitable Home Electrification Policy in Michigan
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Summer 2023
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How we heat our homes plays a major role in the health of our communities and our environment. It will cost $74 billion to weatherize and electrify Michigan's home heating systems, and it's essential that we ensure that communities that have borne the brunt of the harmful effects of pollution and climate change can access these costly upgrades. This report studies the cost of home heating electrification in Michigan to inform how it could meaningfully repair – or seriously worsen – the legacy of racist, profit-driven housing and energy policies in our state.
From Air Pollution to Solutions: Collaborative Planning for Clean Air in Detroit & Wayne County
Spring 2023
The Collaborative Planning for Clean Air in Detroit & Wayne County project is rooted in the vision that breathing clean air is a basic human right, protected by regional policy. In 2022, project coordinators and participants engaged in a year-long inclusive planning process to develop a cohesive plan for clean air and environmental justice advocacy in Detroit and Wayne County.
The Public's Case Against DTE Energy: Extracting Profits, Inducing Health Harms, Damaging Democracy
August 2022
Together with our partners, We the People Michigan and LittleSis, we find that DTE has extracted profit from its customers through hundreds of thousands of shutoffs, the second highest amount of rate hikes in the country, and unnecessary power outages that leave customers without power. They have invested heavily in new fossil fuel power plants that place significant health burdens on customers while blocking renewable energy initiatives. Finally, this report digs into the campaign donations of DTE executives, board members, and PAC to reveal how they utilize dark money to advance their profit-driven agenda.
Assessing the State of Environmental Justice in Michigan
May 2019
In this study, the research team addressed the feasibility of creating a publicly available, accessible Michigan-specific screening tool that would display environmental, social, and health data relevant to environmental justice.