The Michigan Public Service Commission’s order of October 1, 2026 approved DTE Electric’s special contracts with Google for the Van Buren Township data center (Project Cannoli) with conditions, and held the contract’s 80% minimum billing demand (MBD). The 90% figure was Attorney General Dana Nessel’s recommendation, which the Commission did not adopt.

What the filings say

• The AG’s ask. The brief the AG filed on August 3, 2026 (filing date) is her reply brief, not the initial brief. It recommends a 90% MBD instead of DTE’s 80%, and a termination payment on 100% MBD for the full 20-year term. It also argues that at 90% other customers backstop 10% of capacity if Google underperforms, not 20%.
• The contract term. The order records DTE’s position that the MBD is 80% of the Customer’s contract capacity, payable whatever Google actually uses.
• The Commission’s holding. It found the 80% MBD reasonable on Staff’s scenario analysis, in which the lowest-year coverage of non-production costs is 16.64% above 100%. It called the AG’s 90% recommendation arbitrary for lack of any tie to evidence beyond the load factor DTE used in its modeling.
• Termination payment. The Commission rejected the AG’s 100%-for-20-years construction. It put the termination payment at $2.48 billion as of the load ramp completion date, and accepted the 17-year maximum coverage while conceding the AG was correct that it does not cover the full 20 years.

Is there a ratepayer coverage gap if Google reduces load?

• Down to the 80% floor, Google’s minimum bill does not change: the floor is owed on 80% of contract capacity whatever Google uses.
• The Commission relied on Staff’s finding that the floor covers non-production costs. The order does not say the floor covers production (capacity) costs.
• The AG’s contested band is the capacity between the 80% floor and full contract capacity, and she says Staff’s Exhibit S.3.3 analysis omits transmission upgrade costs that DTE left out of its application. The Commission found against her on this record.
• The Commission also relied on the affordability backstop in the Primary Supply Agreement, under which Google reimburses DTE if the Commission later finds costs to serve Google exceed revenues.

Not settled by these filings. Whether a gap emerges in practice depends on production-cost recovery the Staff exhibit does not measure, the transmission costs the AG says are missing, and Google’s actual load.

Date kinds

• Filing and signature date of the AG reply brief.
• October 1, 2026: Commission meeting and order date.
• The Planet Detroit report called the reply-brief filing “a brief”; the document is the reply brief.

Verification note

Both documents were downloaded in full from the MPSC e-docket and the LARA order host and read locally, and every span was matched against the extracted text. Page citations are to the order’s printed page footers. Related: 2026-10-01–wayne-county-overrides-veto-google-project-cannoli-tax-break-mpsc-approves-dte, 2026-10-14–van-buren-planning-commission-approves-project-cannoli-google-data-center-final-site-plan-5-1.

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