The Michigan Public Service Commission has approved six battery energy storage system (BESS) projects totalling 1,332MW of capacity in the US state.
The six contracts include the 450MW Big Mitten Energy Centre, the 350MW Monroe 1 Energy Centre, the 200MW Fermi Energy Centre, the 132MW Fish Creek Energy Centre, the 100MW Cold Creek Energy Centre, and the 100MW Pine River Energy Centre.
The first three energy storage projects will deliver a total of 1,000MW of capacity, satisfying the settlement agreement outlined in DTE Electric’s latest approved integrated resource plan (IRP).
The settlement agreement highlighted a need for at least 850MW of energy storage projects to meet the company’s electric capacity requirements. The approved contracts encompass a 20-year tolling agreement with the Big Mitten Energy Centre in Huron County, along with self-build contracts for the Fermi Energy Centre Project and the Monroe 1 Energy Centre Project in Monroe County.
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The last three contracts (Fish Creek, Cold Creek and Pine River) involve energy storage projects owned and operated by utility DTE Electric, which will support the 1,383MW data centre being developed by Green Chile Ventures LLC in Saline Township, Washtenaw County.
Green Chile Ventures is a wholly owned subsidiary of technology company Oracle.
On 18 December 2025, the Commission approved DTE Electric’s application for the data centre, “imposing mandatory safeguards to prevent residential and other customers from subsidising its costs.”
DTE Electric also requested approval for the Cold Creek Energy Centre, Fish Creek Energy Centre, and Pine River Energy Centre, as well as the associated equipment supply agreements for battery modules and the master service agreements covering engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC).
The data centre-related BESS projects approved by the MPSC include the initial 332MW out of 1,383MW of company-owned energy storage facilities that Green Chile Ventures (Oracle) must develop to meet the data centre’s contractual demand. The total capacity of the battery storage projects approved for this data centre exceeds the capacity of DTE Electric’s 1,150MW Blue Water Energy Centre, Michigan’s latest natural gas-fired plant, which was approved by the MPSC in 2018.
Under the approval terms for the data centre, Oracle, through Green Chile Ventures, will cover the costs over 15 years to develop the energy storage for the project. DTE Electric will be responsible for developing, owning, and operating the facilities to support its grid, while Oracle will earn any market revenues generated from operating the facilities in the wholesale market.
Additionally, the MPSC denied petitions for and motions to reopen proceedings on its approval of special contracts for DTE Electric to provide electric service for the Washtenaw County data centre.
The MPSC determined that the Attorney General and others who requested a rehearing did not have standing to do so. Additionally, they failed to identify any errors, new evidence, facts, circumstances that emerged after the hearing, or unforeseen consequences from the MPSC’s order, which are required to justify a rehearing according to the MPSC’s rules.
According to the MPSC, “The Commission’s initial approval of the data centre included the nation’s strongest protections to prevent other customers from having to pay the data centre’s cost. Those protections include the utility agreeing to be responsible for costs it is unable to recover from Green Chile Ventures.”
They continued, “Additional protections included a minimum contract duration of 19 years, a minimum billing demand of 80% that requires the data centre to pay a minimum of 80% of its contracted electric use even if actual use is lower, and a termination payment of up to 10 years’ worth of minimum billing demand if the facility stops operating before its contracted date.”
There is growing concern that data centres are driving up consumer electricity prices, as evidenced by Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and independent Senator Bernie Sanders’ proposed bill to impose a nationwide moratorium on data centres.
Even US president Donald Trump, who supports accelerating data centre development, admitted in a March meeting with technology companies at the White House, “They need some PR help because people think that if a data centre goes in there, electricity prices are going to go up.”
In the same month, the White House revealed its Ratepayer Protection Pledge. Major tech companies, including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI signed this pledge, committing to develop, deploy, or purchase new generation resources. They also agreed to cover all costs for upgrading power delivery infrastructure at their data centres. Notably, there is currently no way to enforce this pledge.
Large tech companies have largely been committed to at least paying for their own generation resources, and this is often being paired with energy storage.
In February, it was announced that Google would use 30GWh of US startup Form Energy’s iron-air batteries for a data centre in Pine Island, Minnesota, to be installed by utility Xcel Energy.
Form also recently signed a 12GWh supply agreement in the US with AI data centre infrastructure developer Crusoe.
Google has also announced plants with DTE to develop a new data centre in Michigan, including 1,600MW of solar paired with 450MW of energy storage. According to US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, the site, potentially located in Van Buren Township, will be dubbed Project Cannoli, and will utilise 400MW/1,600MWh of BESS and develop 50MW of long-duration energy storage (LDES).
