JACKSON, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – After receiving criticism from customers and lawmakers in Michigan over extended power outages caused by storms the past few years, Consumers Energy has launched a plan for what they say will bring a stronger and smarter energy grid.
Consumers Energy’s Reliability Roadmap was announced Monday, with the company calling it a blueprint to strengthen Michigan’s electric grid. Long term goals include no customer without power for more than 24 hours and no outage affecting more than 100,000 customers.
The utility says the Reliability Roadmap includes a variety of steps to achieve those goals, including:
• Tree Trimming: Significantly increasing and staying at the cycle time needed to keep our lines clear of interference from trees, which is the most effective way to prevent and shorten power outages and improve system reliability.
• Infrastructure upgrades: Expanding and accelerating replacement or rebuild of poles, expand undergrounding power lines where it makes sense, and organize circuits more efficiently.
• Grid modernization: Enhancing the ability for smart meters, sensors and automation devices to work together to help monitor, isolate and automatically respond to interruptions more effectively.
• Equity and environmental justice: Sustaining our commitment that all communities will experience the benefits of the Reliability Roadmap and can participate in the clean energy transformation.
Michiganders have not been immune to severe weather changes happening around the globe. Ice storms, 60+ mph winds and multiple late summer tornadoes are part of a broader trend challenging energy grids nationwide. The last four-year period in Michigan has seen wind-speed averages twice as high as any similar period in the last 20 years.
“Job #1 for us is to keep the lights on regardless of the weather,” said Tonya Berry, Senior Vice President of Transformation & Engineering at Consumers Energy.
“Consistent with our commitment to improve service reliability, Consumers Energy has established new grid performance expectations that better reflect the reality of what Mother Nature is sending our way,” Berry continued. “We are sharing these customer service commitments for the first time, reinforcing our ‘Count on Us’ promise to the nearly 2 million electric customers we have the privilege of serving.”
The company will file a five-year plan as part of the Reliability Roadmap with the Michigan Public Service Commission this week. Learn more at ConsumersEnergy.com/reliable.
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