As part of our plan to build the grid of the future, DTE Energy is transitioning to a smart grid. This transition will help us meet our commitment to reduce outages by 30% and cut outage duration in half by 2029.
Significant investment in technology, including a new state-of-the-art operations center and advanced operating system, have paved the way for DTE’s transition to a smarter, stronger and more resilient grid. This transition focuses on using smart grid technology to help us reduce both the number and length of outages.
Smart grid technology installation in a Detroit neighborhood.
How smart grid technology works
Currently, when a small area of electrical equipment gets damaged, many customers can experience a power outage. But with smart grid technology, our team in the system operations center may be able to remotely isolate the damage to one area and reroute power around the damaged area to many customers, while our crews make repairs. That means that more customers’ power stays on while we’re at work fixing the damaged equipment. This can happen within seconds to minutes with the help of smart grid devices located atop power poles, called reclosers.
Smart grid technology also helps us remotely locate the damage area for our field crews, eliminating the need for them to physically examine power lines and poles to identify a problem — speeding up repairs and reducing outage duration for our customers.
The new operations center, along with our advanced operating system and smart grid devices located across southeast Michigan, work together as one, helping us reduce the number of outages and greatly shorten the time our customers are without power.
Our progress
Our crews have been hard at work installing smart grid devices across the communities we serve. When work is completed by 2029, DTE will have 10,000 of these devices in service.
Transitioning to a smart grid is just one part of our work to build the grid of the future. We’re also upgrading existing infrastructure, rebuilding significant portions of the grid and trimming trees. Read more about this work at empoweringmichigan.com/reliability-improvements.
Interested in seeing the work being done in your community? Visit our power improvements map.