When we laid the groundwork for our electrical infrastructure more than a century ago, we built it to support a simpler day-to-day life. Now that the need for electricity continues to increase, we’re hard at work building the grid of the future.
Last year, DTE Energy submitted a detailed Distribution Grid Plan to the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC). This plan outlines how we’re building a grid ready for today’s needs and the demands of the future.
Here are some of the things we’ve been working on to ensure reliable power:
- Tree trimming: Tree limbs and branches are responsible for 50% of the time our customers spend without power. We have surged our tree trimming efforts to trim overgrown trees in our communities. Since summer 2021, we’ve trimmed more than 5,000 miles of trees near power lines. This is more than the distance between Detroit and Hawaii. In areas where we’ve trimmed the trees, our customers experience significantly less outages.
- Utility pole maintenance: Strong utility poles help carry our electricity throughout our system and are essential to a reliable grid. Over time, they can get damaged and experience wear and tear. We’re continually assessing the condition of our utility poles, repairing and replacing them where needed. Since summer 2021, we’ve replaced nearly 4,000 new poles.
- Strengthening overhead power lines: Overhead power lines are prone to damage caused by strong winds, ice, heat and other accidents. Constant exposure to these elements can lead to lines that eventually fail. This can result in a power outage. Since summer 2021, we’ve performed reliability upgrades on more than 1,000 miles of DTE infrastructure, improving reliability for tens of thousands of customers.
Do you want to know exactly where this work is happening and what kind of work we’re doing for your community? We’ve developed a new Electric Reliability Improvements Map that allows you to see what type of reliability work is planned or occurring in your area/ It also provides an estimated timeframe of when the work will be complete. Go to the map, enter your full home or business address and click on the areas around it to see what investments and improvements we’ll be making throughout the year.
To see these projects in action, check our community pages where we share regular updates about the reliability work we’re doing across our communities.