Consumers Energy reliability work led to near-20 percent reduction in customer outages, report says
A new report from Consumers Energy highlighted a nearly 20 percent reduction in customer outages last year owing to significant upgrades to its electric grid and the completion of more than 2,000 electric projects.
Last year’s efforts by the Michigan-based utility led to the replacement of 10,000 power poles with sturdier materials, upgrades and rebuilds of nearly 100 substations, wider scale deployment of smart technologies, and a new pilot project to underground power lines in areas where it would be most beneficial for the least cost. These efforts paid off, with the total number of minutes customers were left without power also cut nearly in half and more than 96 percent of outages restored within a day.
The company touted it as a win for reliability investments.
“Last year, we were able to provide more reliable service for our customers because of the work we have been doing to build a more resilient power grid,” Chris Laird, Consumers Energy’s vice president of electric operations, said. “By trimming trees, investing in our electric grid, and using automation and other technology to quickly resolve problems, we will continue to make upgrades to meet our goal of having fewer and shorter power outages for our customers.”
Improvements were felt throughout the system, added Greg Salisbury, Consumers Energy’s vice president of electric distribution engineering. Those improvements followed inspections of more than half of the company’s low-voltage distribution system and all of its high-voltage distribution systems.
The improvements, as well as the trimming of more than 7,100 miles of vegetation around lines last year, are part of the company’s five-year, $5.4 billion Electric Reliability Plan. That plan explicitly cited climate change and the severe weather events it’s causing as reasons for investing and innovating in grid upgrades and maintenance. However, Salisbury advised that the numbers aren’t everything.
“It can be easy to get lost in the numbers, but the bottom line is we are building a power grid that is more reliable across the state for all Consumers Energy customers,” Salisbury said.
