HOUGHTON – On Sept. 8, the Daily Mining Gazette reported on an online group called “Fight UPPCO’s rate hikes.” At that time, the group claimed a membership of 909. As of Oct. 3, membership had risen to 1,197 members.

UPPCO has yet to respond publicly to the website.

Two weeks later, the Gazette published another article in which the topic was system support resources (SSR) payments, and what the Upper Peninsula Power Company was doing to reduce or eliminate its share of them.

Another Upper Peninsula company, Cloverland Electric Cooperative of Sault Ste. Marie, was charged with an unpayable $22 million SSR payment, which it contested.

In late July, the company reported the administrative law judge at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled the costs proposed by the midcontinent independent system operator (MISO) and Wisconsin Electric were “unjust and unreasonable.”

As a result, Cloverland’s SSR payment was reduced to $9.8 million, spread out over 14 months to its 42,000 accounts. Cloverland has publicly laid the blame for these payments on a Michigan law, PA 286.

“When PA 286 was passed, large electric consumers were allowed to move up to 10 percent of their electric load away from their providing utility,” the company’s site stated “The two ore mines, owned by Cliffs Natural Resources, were allowed to move 100 percent of their load away from the Presque Isle Power Plant and its owner, Wisconsin Energy.”

The site went on to state that in 2013, Cliffs Natural Resources began paying its power bills to an alternative electric supplier (AES), yet still receiving its electricity from the Marquette plant.

“Wisconsin Energy lost 80 percent of (its) load, and, faced with a $115 million operating budget and costs to install EPA-mandated clean air equipment, announced the plant would close. Being the only major electric generation facility in the Upper Peninsula, the MISO intervened and determined the power plant could not close without jeopardizing the electric reliability in the Upper Peninsula. Wisconsin Energy agreed to keep it open only if they were paid.”

The MISO then drew up an allocation plan, determining how much each Upper Michigan electric company would need to pay to WE for operating the Marquette plant.

The Daily Mining Gazette sought comment from State Representative Scott Dianda, who is on the energy policy committee, regarding the claims, but he did not return multiple phone messages.