DTE Energy has agreed to sell its non-utility subsidiary for $3 billion, allowing the company to sharpen its focus on its regulated electric utility and fund a growing investment pipeline, company officials said Thursday.
DTE serves 2.3 million customers in southeastern Michigan, including Detroit.
DTE Vantage builds and operates energy projects including renewable natural gas. The sale to institutional investors is expected to close in the first half of 2027, DTE President and CEO Joi Harris said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call.
Data center growth is providing “once-in-a-generation opportunities” and “real affordability benefits to our customers,” Harris told analysts.
“Selling Vantage just allows us to sharpen our focus on the regulated utility, and it helps us execute on those investments, and it reduces clearly our equity and debt needs to fund them,” she said.
After the sale of Vantage, DTE Energy “becomes a higher growth premium utility” with long-term operating earnings per share growth of more than 9% annually after 2027, and “a simpler business construct,” Harris noted.
DTE’s new 5-year investment plan, spanning 2027-2031, now stands at $44.2 billion, including $39 billion at its DTE Electric subsidiary and $5.2 billion in its gas operations. The 2026-2030 investment plans totaled $30 billion and $4.5 billion, respectively.
On the electric side, the company’s spending plan includes $23 billion for cleaner generation and $12 billion in distribution investments to harden DTE’s grid system and improve reliability. Generation investments include 7.6 GW of solar and wind additions over the 5-year plan, 2.1 GW of natural gas and 2.7 GW of energy storage.
DTE received approval from Michigan regulators in October to supply a 1-GW Google data center, and last year finalized a 1.4-GW deal with Oracle.
“These projects will provide unprecedented customer bill benefits by spreading system fixed costs across a larger base of electric sales to help keep bills more affordable for existing customers,” Harris said. “The timing of these customer load ramps also creates an opportunity to delay our next electric rate case filing.”
DTE filed a $474 million electric rate case with the Michigan Public Service Commission in April. If the utility receives regulatory approval, Harris said the company won’t need to request new rates again until 2029.
Harris said the company is “continuing to have discussions” with regulators about multiyear rate making “in anticipation” of the state legislature taking that up toward the end of 2027.
“We have a strong and have maintained a strong relationship with both sides of the aisles over our history, and we are expecting nothing different with this cycle,” she said following a national surge for Democrats in the midterm elections, driven partly by backlash to data centers and energy costs.
DTE continues to see “strong demand” for new large-load development, Harris noted. Beyond the Oracle and Google data center deals, the utility currently has a pipeline of 5-6 GW of additional opportunities, including roughly 2 GW in advanced discussions, she noted.
“We are encouraged by the continued level of customer interest and remain focused on securing an additional agreement by year-end,” she said.
