A new electric substation is more than just a collection of electrical equipment that powers homes and businesses — it’s a symbol of the improved power reliability for customers. And in Almont, we recently completed a new substation.
Here are three things you should know about the new substation.
1) The new substation was energized and completed in January.
Construction on the substation began in 2023 and was completed in January when crews energized it. The substation has all new, modernized equipment, like new transformers, cabling and smart grid technology.
Once customers are switched over to new substation later this year, the upgraded equipment will help us deliver more reliable power to more than 2,600 customers in Almont. The new substation equipment will also help us quickly identify system issues and outages and respond to them faster.
2. The substation is just one part of a $55 million project to improve your electric service.
As part of a $55 million investment, crews began rebuilding the electrical equipment that delivers power to homes and businesses in Almont in 2021. The work, which is expected to be completed later this year, includes:
- Installing smart grid devices, called reclosers. Positioned on top of power poles, reclosers will help us quickly pinpoint outages and automatically restore power to a portion of our customers while crews make repairs.
- Building a new electric substation.
- Replacing more than 20 miles of utility poles, power lines, transformers and more to upgraded, higher voltage equipment that can provide more reliable power to customers.
- Trimming trees growing closer to power lines.
Once this infrastructure is fully rebuilt later this year, we will switch customers over to the new system powered by the Midas substation. After all work is completed, customers served by this upgraded equipment will experience an expected 90% improvement in reliability.
3) The new substation was built to help improve reliability by an expected 90% and capacity.
There were two main drivers for constructing a new substation and upgrading the power delivery equipment: reliability and capacity issues.
Reliability: In recent years, reliability in the Almont area has been below DTE’s system average. To help improve power quality, we built the new substation, which will replace the 70-year-old substation that currently powers the area. As mentioned above, we’re also upgrading the aging power delivery infrastructure with stronger equipment that is better able to withstand the increasingly extreme weather.
Capacity: In the coming years, the demand for energy is expected to increase for the Almont area. The new substation will have more than enough capacity to accommodate this need now and far in the future. The added capacity will also allow us to support clean energy solutions, like more electric vehicles.
Rebuilding work like this is just one part of our plan to build the grid of the future, which also includes transitioning to a smart grid, upgrading existing infrastructure and trimming trees. Read more at empoweringmichigan.com/reliability-improvements.
