Just as the changing color of leaves is a sign fall has arrived, the recent energization of the newly constructed Islandview Substation signifies more reliable power is coming to Detroit’s east side.
Since April 2022, crews have been working to construct a new electric substation, which will help deliver more reliable power to homes and businesses in the East Village, Elmwood Park, Gold Coast, Indian Village, Islandview, Joseph Berry Sub, Lafayette Park, McDougall-Hunt, Rivertown and West Village neighborhoods of Detroit. Crews completed construction and energized the new substation four months ahead of schedule.
“Energizing the Islandview Substation is significant both for DTE and for our customers on Detroit’s east side,” Nicholas Lusk, DTE capital project manager, said. “Although people may not have seen the work happening directly in their neighborhood, the substation will help improve power quality for our customers, especially during extreme weather.”
The new substation will also double the capacity of the grid in the area. The added capacity will help support additional residents and businesses moving to the east side, as well as clean energy solutions like electric vehicles.
Islandview Substation has all new, modernized equipment, like new transformers, cabling and smart grid equipment. The upgraded equipment will help us deliver more reliable power and identify issues and outages and respond to them sooner.
“The substation construction was just the beginning of our work to improve electric service for our customers,” Lusk said. “Over the next several years, crews will be rebuilding the infrastructure that will deliver power from the Islandview Substation to homes and businesses on the east side.”
This $270 million rebuild includes trimming trees; installing new, stronger utility poles; modernized cable, which is going to have less failures; and smart devices that will automatically reroute power to many of our customers during an outage — keeping the lights on for more customers while our crews make repairs. Additionally, we will trim trees throughout the area in preparation for the work.
All these improvements will be completed by December 2031 and are part of our four-point plan to improve reliability: trimming trees, upgrading existing infrastructure, rebuilding older sections of the grid and accelerating our transition to a smart grid. Read more about work happening throughout our service territory at empoweringmichigan.com/reliability-improvements.