Your Home Energy Report Explained

Saving energy helps customers and energy providers. When customers use a lot of energy, Consumers Energy needs to turn to additional energy sources and power plants to meet the demand. If customers save energy, it reduces their bills and helps control costs for everyone by letting us avoid turning to additional power plants.

Home Energy Reports, or HERs, are personalized reports that give you information about your home’s energy use. Your report may include information about your use of natural gas, electricity or both, depending on what service Consumers Energy provides for you.

HERs give you detailed information about your household’s energy use, including how much energy you use compared to homes similar to yours and charts tracking how you use energy over time. The reports also share personalized opportunities for you to reduce your home’s energy use.

Although the report displays energy costs, it is not a bill. Your Consumers Energy bill will continue to arrive separately.

You can opt out of receiving all reports by contacting customer support at 844-254-6959.

To stop receiving email reports only, you can also click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email report. If you are receiving email and print reports, you will continue to receive paper reports in the mail unless you call customer support.

If you’ve opted out of the program, you can opt back in anytime, as long as you still meet the eligibility requirements: having 13 continuous months’ worth of Consumers Energy service at the same home (which is owned by you). To opt back in to the program, call HER program customer support at 844-254-6959.

At this time, you cannot select the type of report that you receive, or the frequency at which you receive it. This is because, as part of the program, we’re observing how different report types at different schedules impact energy savings. We’re committed to analyzing the results of this program so that we can make future Home Energy Reports as useful and effective as possible.

If you don’t currently receive email reports but want to receive them in addition to your print reports, login to your Energy Dashboard and provide an email address, and we will add you into a future report cycle.

Unfortunately, if you move to a new home where you don’t have an account history with Consumers Energy, you will not be able to receive Home Energy Reports until you have had 13 months of continuous service.

Last year we announced our Clean Energy Plan, which is a 20-year strategic road map to protect Michigan’s environment. We plan to eliminate coal, dramatically boost clean energy resources and give customers like you more control to reduce energy waste. Learn how our plan benefits you by visiting Force of Change.

We receive information about your energy use from your utility meter, and then use data models, which evaluate your past use, the weather, publicly available data about your home and more, to predict how you’ll use energy the next month. These data models also allow us to generate the tips and recommendations on your report.

You can update your own home information (which will make your energy forecast, tips and home comparisons more accurate) by logging in to your online Energy Dashboard From there, you can answer the questions under “Your home profile,” which ask you about your home’s characteristics.

You can also update your information by calling our customer service line at 844-254-6959.

After you make updates, they will appear on one of the next two reports you receive (the first report may have already been generated with your old information).

The average home and efficient home categories in the home comparison section of your report show the averaged energy use of real homes.

To determine who is included in each category, we rank the energy efficiency of all the homes that are similar to yours in terms of size, type, location, age, and type of heating (this information is gathered from public databases). Average home represents the ones in the middle of the pack, who fall at the 50% mark in the efficiency ranking. Efficient home represents homes in your comparison group that are in the most energy efficient 25%.

The energy use of the homes you are compared to is presented only as an average. You will never see another individual home’s energy use information, nor will they see yours.

We include hundreds of data points about home construction, use patterns and typical local weather to create our projection of your energy use (this information comes from various user-provided and publicly available sources). Our data model makes calculated estimates of how you will use energy based on the best available research.

The more information you provide to us about your own home, the more accurate and specific your energy use breakdown will be. You can update this information by updating your home profile on your Energy Dashboard or by calling us at 844-254-6959. The information you provide will not be shared with anyone else, except as part of an average of many homes’ use.

Our energy use projections have been validated by experts around the country, including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Recently, updates were made to our Home Energy Report program that may have changed the appearance of your report, as well as the comparisons between your home and other homes. As part of the update, we re-grouped each customer’s home to improve the comparisons and make sure you are grouped appropriately. This means your home is being more accurately compared to homes like yours.

We value our customers’ privacy and security and do not sell or share your data.

Your Home Energy Reports are for your use alone, and all of the comparison information is compiled anonymously to create your report. Your personal information and home characteristics are not shared with others.

Your privacy is of the utmost importance to us, and we take safeguarding your data very seriously. For more detailed information, please view our Privacy Policy.