Utilities plan recovery after storms blackout power for 1 million
(The Center Square) – After more than 1 million Michiganders lost power for days as a result of severe weather events, the state’s leaders and residents want answers why the Wolverine State sees more prolonged outages than neighboring states.
The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) directed the electric utilities it regulates to answer questions about their responses to storms.
The Aug. 10-12 storms with 70 mph winds damaged trees, utility poles, and power lines. DTE Electric Co. reported more than 500,000 outages, Consumers Energy Co. reported 372,000 customer outages, totaling more than 1 million customers without power when accounting for smaller utilities.
“The MPSC recognizes Michiganders’ rights to expect reliable service from their utility companies and timely restoration of power after storms,” MPSC Chair Dan Scripps said in a statement. “In the last several years, we’ve taken a number of concrete steps to improve reliability and update customer bill credits. But as this summer’s storms laid bare, we have more work to do, and we have to do it faster.”
The Commission directed DTE Electric, Consumers Energy; Indiana Michigan Power Co., Alpena Power Co., Northern States Power Co.; Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corp., and Upper Peninsula Power Co. – to file reports on:
Vegetation management and grid hardening efforts, and how those efforts contribute to reliability performance.A breakdown of each company’s worst-performing electric circuits , including frequency of and duration of outages and repeat outages and where those circuits stand concerning tree trimming practices, grid hardening, and other system upgrades.A list of the top 10 ZIP codes that have the most and least frequent outages and the longest and shortest restoration times, and the top 10 ZIP codes where future efforts for the most tree trimming, reliability, and resiliency improvements are planned.Summaries of efforts in each utility’s 5-year distribution plans to tackle outages and reliability, including, for Consumers and DTE Electric, information on metrics and financial incentives and penalties.Plans or actions after the August storms addressing bill credits for customers, and a summary of restoration efforts, including costs for restoration, details of customer communication efforts, and opportunities for improvement in storm response and communication customers, including proactive communication efforts with vulnerable customers.
A 2019 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration named Michigan among the states with the longest total time for electricity power outages in 2019.
In letters to DTE Energy, Consumers Energy, and Indiana Michigan Power, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called on the utilities to commit resources to improve reliability through tree trimming and grid hardening.
“This summer, Michiganders have been dealing with extreme weather events that led to lengthy power outages and repeated flooding,” Whitmer said in a news release.
Joshua Paciorek, a spokesman for Consumers Energy, said they’re working on a long-term plan to prevent outages.
“To work to prevent outages, we’ve already more than doubled our investment in grid hardening reliability and increased our forestry investment by more than 60 percent since 2018,” Paciorek told The Center Square in an email. “Looking forward, we plan to continue to significantly increase our investments in grid reliability.”
Paciorek attached a $5.4 billion electric reliability plan hinged on reducing the duration and number of power outages via infrastructure upgrades, forestry management, and grid modernization.
DTE hasn’t responded to a request for comment.
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