Making power more reliable is at the heart of the work DTE Energy is performing in Oakland County — and trimming trees is an important part of that work.
So far in 2023, our crews have trimmed more than 763 miles of trees in Oakland County. And we’ll continue to trim trees through the winter months because of the detrimental role they often play in outages. Did you know that trees damaging our equipment account for 50% of the time that our customers are without power? That’s why our tree trimming crews are hard at work year-round to help keep the lights on for our customers.
But tree trimming alone is just one important part of our four-point plan for better electric reliability system wide.
We have already invested more than $5 billion upgrading our grid over the last five years alone. The investment needs to continue to provide our customers with the power they need and the reliability they deserve.
Our plan is well underway and focused in four key areas:
Trimming trees
- Since 2020, we have invested more than $586 million in tree trimming and we’re on track to invest an additional $175 million this year.
- We trimmed more than 25,000 miles of trees over the last five years and will trim 5,000 miles more in 2023.
- By the end of 2025, we will have trimmed every mile of our grid. Equally important, tree trimming will continue on a five-year cycle to ensure that we continue to keep trees away from our equipment.
Updating existing infrastructure
- We must continue with investing in the maintenance of our existing equipment. In 2022, on some of our most challenged circuits where we have focused this ongoing maintenance work, customers have seen reliability improve.
Rebuilding significant portions of the grid
- There are portions of our grid that date back to the early 1900s. We must continue rebuilding older portions of our grid to improve resiliency and reliability. During this rebuild, there may be strategic opportunities to move wires underground.
Accelerating our transition to a smart grid
- With our new Systems Operations Center and recent launch of our state-of-the-art grid management system, DTE has laid the foundation of investing in smart grid technology.
- In many cases, this technology will help us quickly pinpoint damaged areas on the grid and isolate outages to restore many customers in minutes.
- How will this make a difference? This system allows us to automatically reroute service around the outage area, keeping more customers with power (in some cases up to 50% of impacted customers) and allow our crews to perform repairs safely and more quickly, even getting to a work site faster to assess and begin making repairs.
- A great analogy of how this works is to think of a modern string of holiday lights. In years gone by, one light would go out and then none of the others would work. Now, if one or two go out… the rest remain on. Simply put, that’s what automation on the smart grid can help us get done.
We’ve made significant investments in the grid, but we’re not done yet. Over the next five years, we plan to invest more than $9 billion more in our grid to make it safer and more reliable for customers.
Building a world-class grid for our customers will take time – but the investment is critical for Michigan’s future.
Interested in seeing the work being done in your community? Visit our Electric Reliability Improvements Map online.