For the past decade, the downtown Detroit area has been booming. Corporate offices, restaurants, shops, hotels and residents have been rapidly coming to the area, and there are many new construction projects on the horizon. With anticipation of several new neighbors moving in, DTE Energy is working to ensure our electric grid can meet the current and future needs of those who live, work and play the city.
That is why we created the City of Detroit Infrastructure (CODI) strategy. The city of Detroit was one of the first cities in the nation to be fully electrified more than 100 years ago. CODI aims to take the infrastructure of Thomas Edison’s day and modernize it to support our customers’ growing needs. To accomplish this, we plan to invest more than $1.2 billion to remove and replace the electric infrastructure in downtown Detroit (Central Business District, Corktown, East and West Riverfront areas and Eastern Market, Midtown and New Center).
“We’re committed to investing in and building a safer, more reliable electric grid that supports the growing demands of our communities,” Aaron Balch, manager of engineering support, said. “The CODI strategy will help us do this by addressing the unique electric infrastructure needs of downtown Detroit, paving the way for a more electrified future.”
In addition to helping keep the lights on for customers, the work will also increase the gird’s safety and capacity. The added capacity will allow us to support the city’s growth and more electric energy options like electric vehicles.
Through 2035, we plan to complete 13 rebuilding projects, which will benefit the nearly 32,000 DTE customers in the area. The work includes:
- Constructing new, modern substations with greater capacity that will deliver even more power to downtown Detroit.
- Expanding and upgrading equipment at existing substations.
- Completely removing and replacing underground and overhead power delivery infrastructure, including new, stronger power poles, power lines, transformers and electric equipment.
- Installing smart grid technology. These devices will help keep people safer by de-energizing downed power lines. They will also pinpoint the damage that caused an outage, so crews can arrive on-site faster to make repairs. Finally, smart devices can reroute power to many customers during an outage while we make repairs.
- Trimming or removing trees to prevent them from falling on to electric equipment and causing an outage.
- Removing obsolete, aging infrastructure and decommissioning 10 90-year-old substations.
The CODI strategy, along with DTE’s other work to build the grid of the future, will help ensure Detroit has reliable power for years to come.
Learn more about our ongoing CODI projects:
- Corktown Substation construction and electrical equipment rebuild in the Corktown and West Riverfront areas
- Electrical equipment rebuild in Midtown, Brush Park, Douglas and Brewster Homes neighborhoods
- Electrical equipment rebuild in the Cultural Center, Eastern Market, Forest Park, McDougall-Hunt northern Midtown, Medbury Park, Medical Center, Poletown East and Wayne State neighborhoods
- Islandview Substation construction and equipment rebuild in the East Village, Elmwood Park, Gold Coast, Indian Village, Islandview, Joseph Berry Sub, Lafayette Park, McDougall-Hunt, Rivertown and West Village neighborhoods
- Promenade Substation construction and equipment rebuild in the Airport Sub, Buffalo-Charles, Gratiot Town/Kettering, Gratiot Woods, a portion of Hamtramck, Pingree Park and West End neighborhoods
Learn more about work happening in your neighborhood at empoweringmichigan.com/reliability-improvements or by visiting DTE’s Power Improvements Map.