If you live, work or play in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, you’ve likely noticed DTE trucks in alleyways around Michigan Avenue. Since fall 2022, we’ve been rebuilding the overhead and underground infrastructure that delivers power to the Corktown and West Riverfront areas of the city. This work is part of our four-point plan to improve reliability, which includes trimming trees, upgrading existing infrastructure and accelerating our transition to a smart grid, in addition to rebuilding older sections of the grid.
This rebuilding project represents a $165 million investment by DTE to modernize more than 30 miles of overhead and underground equipment, including installing new utility poles, power lines, transformers in the area. We also are trimming trees and incorporating smart technology into the system, which will help automatically reroute power to many customers during an outage.
All this work will strengthen our infrastructure to better withstand extreme weather, improve overall reliability and safety. The improvements will also increase the grid’s capacity to meet the area’s growing energy needs, supporting the addition of residential and business customers as well as clean energy solutions like electric vehicles.
Recently, crews were working in an alley between Wabash and 14th Streets, setting up new utility poles and pole top equipment.
Later, they will return to string new cables across the power poles. Crews will continue working in this part of Corktown over the next few months and will install more than 100 poles and nearly two miles of new overhead infrastructure in alleyways.
You may notice old and new poles standing side-by-side for a while — we do this, so you continue to have power while we work on the new system. When the area is converted to the new system, we will return and remove all the old poles and equipment.
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- New utility poles ready to be installed.
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- New and old utility poles placed next to each other.
Additionally, our crews have been removing and replacing the underground cables and equipment that delivers power to customers in Corktown.
Learn more about this project and our four-point plan at empoweringmichigan.com/reliability-improvements.