Building the grid of the future 

To provide customers with the safe, reliable energy they need and deserve, we are investing $9 billion over the next five years to rebuild and upgrade the infrastructure that delivers power to homes and businesses.  

This work is part of our four-point plan to improve electric reliability for our customers:  

1. Trimming trees: Did you know that historically fallen trees have been responsible for nearly 70% of the time our customers spend without power? That’s why we’ve accelerated our efforts to trim overgrown trees in your neighborhood to keep you safe and the energy grid reliable. Learn how our Tree Trimming team works with our communities to prevent these outages from occurring in the first place. 

2. Upgrading existing infrastructure: We’re strengthening existing utility poles, power lines and electrical equipment that deliver your power to better withstand extreme weather. 

• Pole and pole top maintenance and modernization: Sturdy utility poles are the backbone of a reliable electric system. We are inspecting utility poles throughout our communities and are replacing them and upgrading the attached equipment as needed, including crossarms, insulators and more. The pole top equipment is made of stronger materials, experiences less deterioration from weather elements and can better withstand increasing storms and wind gusts, resulting in fewer equipment failures and customer outages. 
• Hardening overhead infrastructure: Our Hardening program aims to reduce wire down events and improve safety by removing old wires and ensuring remaining wires are left in a safe configuration. We are also doing things like replacing and reinforcing utility poles and replacing wooden crossarms with stronger fiberglass crossarms. This work helps prevent outages for our customers.   
• Strengthening power lines: Overhead wires and underground cables deliver power from substations to homes and businesses. Constant exposure to the elements can result in damage to electrical equipment and eventual failure of power lines. We are reconfiguring and installing new, stronger overhead wires and underground cables to make our system more resilient. These vital upgrades will help keep the lights on for our customers. 
• Substation upgrades: Substations are essential sets of equipment that deliver power to our communities. We regularly inspect and upgrade equipment at our substations to ensure our electric system is running safely and efficiently to meet the needs of our customers now and far into the future.    

3. Rebuilding significant portions of the grid: We are removing and replacing electrical substation equipment and the underground and overhead infrastructure that delivers power, including installing new poles and wiring. Necessary tree trimming will be completed in advance of pole replacements. 

• New substation construction: We are constructing new, modernized substations across our service territory. These new substations will make the infrastructure stronger, reduce power outages and support future energy demand. They will also include smart grid technology that will allow us to quickly detect issues with our distribution infrastructure and, where possible, reroute power to customers during an outage.  
• Substation expansion: We are improving reliability and the grid’s capacity to support our customers’ growing energy needs by expanding and upgrading equipment at our existing substations.  
• Rebuilding electrical equipment: We are rebuilding the overhead and underground infrastructure that delivers power to our customers, including installing new utility poles, wires and transformers. We are also trimming trees ahead of the rebuild. All this work will help to significantly improve safety, reliability and the grid’s capacity to support new customers and clean energy solutions like electric vehicles.  

4. Accelerating our transition to a smart grid: We’re also accelerating our transition to a smart grid to help keep our customers’ power on, especially during extreme weather. Here are a few of the ways this will improve the grid:  

• We’re installing reclosers — smart grid equipment that helps automatically isolate and reroute power to many of our customers during an outage — keeping the lights on for more customers while our crews make repairs. 
• We’re incorporating smart meters with advanced technology that helps us identify outages and restore power to homes and businesses as quickly and safely as possible.  
• We’re using Smart Grid Sensors that allow us to monitor the grid to more quickly respond to power outages and identify and fix potential malfunctions with critical equipment before they cause a power outage. 

Economic Benefits 

Our modernized grid and infrastructure investments drive economic growth throughout Michigan, which means more jobs and support for communities. Many of our system improvements are sourced through Michigan-based suppliers, helping to create and support more than 8,500 jobs in our home state. For more about DTE’s commitment to Michigan, please view our Sustainability Report.