25-50 - Gas Obsolescence Preliminary Study

The City of Ann Arbor has set the goal of achieving community-wide carbon neutrality in a just and equitable manner by the year 2030 (known as A2ZERO). A key piece of achieving this goal is transitioning away from fossil gas toward decarbonized solutions for heating and cooling, powering appliances, operating vehicles, and more (e.g., beneficial electrification, geothermal). As the City looks at viable technologies and service models, it is also interested in leveraging its interventions in regulatory proceedings to move the State of Michigan’s gas utilities to concretely identify how they will meet their decarbonization goals and prepare for lower demand, including eventual obsolescence of gas infrastructure. One particular area of interest to the City is understanding what the
future of gas will be in Michigan.

This points to the value of having a comprehensive Future of Gas vision that the City can use in various MPSC proceedings to evaluate gas utilities investment in light of strategies to achieve climate and decarbonization goals and outline how such strategies will impact ratepayers. To that end, the City is seeking a qualified professional firm to identify best practices related to current and past Future of Gas Proceedings in other jurisdictions, estimates of reduced gas usage due to customer choices and governmental policies in DTE’s service territory, viable technologies to consider when looking to decarbonize market segments traditionally covered by gas utilities, the impact to ratepayers of various strategies and assumptions (including adjusted depreciation schedules), and key variables the City, DTE, and the MPSC should be considering as it evaluates how the decarbonization transition can be undertaken with the lowest impact to ratepayers, especially residential ratepayers.

Work under this RFP is funded through the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs’ Utility Consumer Participation Board. The total amount of funding allocated for this work is $75,000. Those unable to perform the tasks outlined below for
this amount should indicate what they can reasonably accomplish with $75,000 and what it would cost them to complete the full scope. In addition, all bidders must acknowledge and confirm that they can complete all work under this RFP no later than June 30, 2026.