Mother Nature is unpredictable and has been bringing stronger, more aggressive storms to Michigan. As part of our commitment to reducing power outages by 30% and cutting outage time in half by the end of 2029, we’re strengthening our electric grid to better withstand storms this spring and summer.
Here are some of the steps DTE takes to prepare for extreme weather:
Increase Secure First wire down teams: The safety of our customers and communities is our top priority. In 2024, we tripled the number of people securing downed power lines to help keep the public safe. Remember: always stay at least 25 feet away from any downed wire AND anything that wire is touching.
Modernize the power grid: Over the past five years, we invested more than $6.7 billion to upgrade and rebuild the infrastructure that delivers your power. Over the next five years, we’re investing an additional $10 billion to continue implementing our plan to build the grid of the future. As a result of this investment, DTE customers experienced nearly 70% improvement in reliability from 2023 to 2024.
Perform regular maintenance: DTE conducts routine infrastructure inspections to identify and address potential issues, ensuring everything is in good condition.
Trim trees: DTE trims trees near power lines to prevent storm-related outages. By the end of this year, we will have trimmed every inch of our 31,000 miles of overhead equipment within the last five years.
Refine restoration strategy, processes and emergency plan: DTE reworked and improved our detailed plan for responding to outages, mobilizing crews and working with local emergency agencies. Some of the efficiencies include:
- Streamlining our dispatch process to save one hour of time for crew assignments, speeding up our restoration efforts.
- Revamping our damage assessment process, doubling the amount of storm damage we’re able to assess prior to crews arriving onsite to complete repairs.
- Improving our storm response strategy to have 20% more crews working overnight to quicken restorations.
- Implementing a new outage prediction tool, so we can stage crews and speed up restoration.
Monitor weather: DTE meteorologists track summer storms with advanced tools to predict impacts and plan response strategies with our emergency response team.
Prioritize restoration: When power outages occur, DTE prioritizes restoration efforts based on critical infrastructure, public safety needs and the number of customers affected to ensure we restore power to the largest number of people as quickly as possible.
Stockpile equipment: Essential equipment, such as poles, transformers and wires, is stockpiled to speed repairs.
Train employees: DTE employees participate in regular training and readiness programs to ensure they are well-prepared to handle all storm-related emergencies.
Communicate with customers: DTE provides updates and safety information through various channels before, during and after storms to keep customers safe and informed.
Coordinate with other utilities: DTE collaborates with neighboring utilities to share resources during storms, including mutual aid agreements for sending equipment and crews to impacted areas.
These proactive measures help minimize the impact of storms and extreme weather events on the DTE electric grid and make for quicker, safer restoration of power to customers across our service territory. During extreme weather, please view our outage center and dynamic outage map on the DTE App, or at outage.dteenergy.com
To learn more about what we’re doing to build a smarter, stronger and more resilient power grid, visiting empoweringmichigan.com or the DTE Power Improvements Map.