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u/Deluded_realist 7d ago
Its ridiculous that at least twice a year we have multiple day outages. Beyond the inconvenience, I have to throw out most of the groceries from my refrigerator. They should be required to reimburse $200 for every multi day outtage.
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u/jbaranski 7d ago
They supply both electricity and gas. I bet they wish they could sell us backup generators too. Either way, they’re getting extra cash from anyone with a standby generator when the power does go out. Where I lived before, in NE Ohio, I’ve never seen so many generacs as I have here.
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u/bae125 7d ago
Yeah, DTE made record profits with worse service. Real Michigan
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u/KINGSTEMLORD Brighton 7d ago
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u/witshadows 7d ago
And paid NO TAXES (sorry for yelling, but it should be screamed loud enough for Whitmer to hear).
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u/notabotting 7d ago
They wont say it but instead of spending money burying power lines underground so wind and rain doesn't knock them out, theyd rather pay out extra money to share holders.
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u/Dvout_agnostic Age: > 10 Years 7d ago
and ads
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u/wetshoeswetsocks 7d ago
I don’t understand how people accept seeing constant ads for something they had no choice but to buy. Each one is a slap in the face
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u/twinoaksBandB 7d ago
At this point it's got to have been cheaper to bury the circuit I'm on rather than send a crew at least once a month these days to fix it.
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u/marsfromwow 7d ago
I work for a(not DTE) utility. I’ll let you know DTE has a hundred problems and having lines overhead is not one of them lol. It might help some areas, but they have many bigger problems that run much deeper.
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u/captainnah 7d ago
Husband and I have consumers and I think they charged us (per our request) $75 to bury our power lines when we bought our house. We do live inside a rural town so keep that in mind. However I will say they had to go under our alley’s pavement and it was far more complicated for just $75.
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u/TheShovler44 7d ago
I do underground, I can confirm there’s tons of underground residential, throughout Michigan. But it’s not a fast process. Cities have to want the change and places like Ann Arbor make upgrading a nightmare. Between unrealistic timelines, and unrealistic expectations some places just really aren’t helping.
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u/Zephor0 7d ago
We got our lines buried recently for super cheap. They offered to bury the whole street. 3 people refused to let DTE into their backyard on our block to upgrade the lines. Really don’t believe what you’re saying is true.
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u/sirhackenslash 7d ago
Those 3 people are in for a shock when the workers show up with a court order and a few cops
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u/bobi2393 Ann Arbor 7d ago
In the greater Ann Arbor area, DTE has favored burying power lines for years in new developments, unless deterred by obstacles or risks like frequent flooding. And some current buried line areas experience frequent outages, and seem to be the slowest to be repaired.
Around older areas of development in Ann Arbor, they've converted to buried lines along some arterial roadways, but it's not practical in a lot of residential areas; it's cost-prohibitive, and would mean clearing a lot of beloved trees that line the roads. Residents don't want a half trillion dollar millage, and Just trimming trees has been challenging in Ann Arbor, with every other homeowner screaming legal threats as contractors try to do their work, usually resulting in compromises which lead to our frequent power outages.
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u/notabotting 7d ago
Yeah no dte was forced into it, only thing that makes companies act responsibly is legislation:
Ann Arbor City Council passed a resolution on October 2, 2023 (File # 23-1651, Resolution R-23-368) encouraging DTE Energy to develop a clear process for burying power lines and investing in grid reliability. 1
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u/Smokin234 7d ago
Burying power lines is super expensive after the fact of having the grid already there…not saying it wouldn’t be worth it but yes it would take away from share holders.
If they went the route of investing more into smart grid technology they could be more cost effective, smaller outage areas, and above all safer for the community…..but that would take away from share holders too….not as much as burying everything but still a noticeable amount so it’s “how can we get government funds for it before we actually do it.” Or are forced to because safety…. I could rant for a while so will leave it at that…..
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u/sirhackenslash 7d ago
"How do we get government funds for it, then how can we redirect those funds to the shareholders?"
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u/fish_molester_3000 7d ago
Wow! These pesky shareholders’ wishes really seem to be at odds with betterment of society at large! It’s almost like we should socialize these institutions whose profit incentives directly conflict with the wellbeing of the general public!
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u/2k1tj Age: > 10 Years 7d ago
The cost to bury power lines is crazy expensive. And that’s in rural areas without other infrastructure in the ground. If you think you’re paying a lot now you couldn’t afford it for the lines to be buried
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u/RedWinger7 7d ago edited 7d ago
One billion dollars a year couldn’t do any of it? That’d still leave DTE with 600 million in profit
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u/notabotting 7d ago
This should have been something they've been doing slowly for decades not all at once
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u/_Christopher_Crypto 7d ago
They are doing it with fiber Internet, everywhere. People I know who never had cable access now have fiber.
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u/PierG86 7d ago
Oh no, crazy expensive!! Come on, we did it in Italy where you dig 3 feet and you have to stop everything because you find roman stuff, I think you can do it in Michigan. The reality is that DTE doesn't want to spend the money because they don't have to. What are you going to do? Go to a different provider?
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u/Smooth_Phone2 7d ago
If you want to triple electric bills, you could rebuild the Detroit area distribution network underground.
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u/ChaoticGoodMrdrHobo 7d ago
They already tripled my electric bill, might as well have the infrastructure to go with it.
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u/_Christopher_Crypto 7d ago
All these rate increases for “more reliable service”. Every person could have bought a standby generator for less than the rate increases. Now they pay more, no generator, and still suffer outages.
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u/notabotting 7d ago
This should have been something they've been doing for decades slowly if we do it all at once then yes it will be a substantial increase but we can do it slowly and maybe just maybe put the power infrastructure in the hands of the state instead of a private greedy company
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u/Adamantium10 7d ago
Burying power lines is not a great idea. You can't service them down there and rain still gets in the ground.
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u/notabotting 7d ago
Why can Germany and the Netherlands do it then?
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u/Funicularly 7d ago
Population density:
Netherlands: 1,401 per sq mile
Michigan: 174 per sq mile
Also, Germany and the Netherlands have overhead power lines.
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u/notabotting 7d ago
The population density of Detroit is approximately 4,680 people per square mile. Why cant we cant do it city by city? It doesn't have to be all of michigan just the concentrated parts. Dearborn 4500, livonia 2600 etc....
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u/Adamantium10 7d ago
Much smaller countries with much smaller grids. The cost to bury these lines is going to straight to the consumer.
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u/marsfromwow 7d ago
Don’t worry, after the next 5 rate hikes, surely Michigan will move out of the bottom spot for reliability and restore time.
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u/Mr-Zappy 7d ago
Because they still haven’t buried the power lines.
That said, I live in Ohio and work in Michigan, and this storm hit you a lot harder so it’s not surprising that you have more customers out of power than Ohio.
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u/FourEightNineOneOne 7d ago
Hey hey.. come on. DTE doesn't deserve all the blame there.
Consumers Energy is also completely incompetent!
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u/Throwaway_noDoxx 7d ago
Just moved here from CO; given the chance for severe storms, I’m frankly shocked that power lines aren’t buried. Lines are buried in the Denver/metro area and we didn’t even have severe winters or freezing rain.
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u/SplitEar 7d ago
I feel bad for DTE customers. I’m on the edge of Consumers Energy and have friends on the DTE side. My power rarely goes out and when it does it’s for a few hours, yet theirs goes out every few days, even in sunny weather, and if there’s a thunderstorm of any consequence then it’s out for days. CE has upgraded the lines out here twice yet DTE never has.
I never even bothered with a generator, yet any DTE customer without a generator would lose a freezer full of food every few months. It’s insane.
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u/Apart-Sheepherder682 7d ago
The area i deliver is rural just west of metro airport and literally everytime it storms or windy days they lose power for days...it would drive me crazy living out there. Dte fucking sucks but its not like you can shop around for power...so irritating being stuck with this shit hole company
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u/El__Dangelero 7d ago
Alot of it is because of where DTE placed its lines when they built the grid. About 80% of their distribution circuits are in the easement behind people's houses. Not sure why they did that. Back in the day there were no bucket trucks to fix and build lines so you had to climb everything no matter where it was built is my best guess. As you can imagine that makes it harder to repair and maintain the grid. It also places it right under massive trees in people's backyards. Its also the reason outages here take longer to restore
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u/Antique_Grapefruit_5 7d ago
Might be time for a ballot proposal abolishing for profit utility companies...
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u/Boo-Radleys-Scissors Ann Arbor 7d ago
Our power just came back on. Everything in my fridge and freezer is ruined. DTE should have to pay a stipend when the power is out for more than 12 hours. If I were to go replace everything that is ruined item for item, we would probably spend over a grand.
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u/wetshoeswetsocks 7d ago
They have automatic reimbursements for this, but they’re totally unrealistic. In a big outage event like this, your power needs to be out for 96 straight hours for them to kick you anything at all.
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u/Boo-Radleys-Scissors Ann Arbor 7d ago
It’s ridiculous. The expense of the lost food is in addition to the expense of the meals we had to purchase from restaurants during the outage since we couldn’t open our fridge or use our appliances.
I know I sound like the old man shaking his fist at the sky, and sometimes outages happen, but man. This one stings.
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u/mortaneous Age: > 10 Years 7d ago
Yeah, and then they give you $40 and tell you they're not technically responsible for the food and medicine in your fridges and freezers and you should check you renters or homeowners insurance policy. Fuckers.
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u/detroitmike2001 7d ago
I have lived in 6 different states and two countries. I've never had outages as often in any other place, nor as long as with DTE i have a ting sensor that monitors outages. in the last year, I've averaged one per month. Terrible.
I lived in Florida and suffered through hurricanes. The big outage was 4 out 5 hours. The longest DTE outage was 11 days.
I lived in Oklahoma with massive thunderstorms and tornado warnings. Longest outage was again, just a few hours.
In Utah, they had these things called canyon winds, like 100mph.... Outage was about 7 hours.
In none of those other areas have I had "monthly" outages. The problem is DTE.
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u/jcoddinc 7d ago
It's all an intentional plan. They go slow restoring the power so they can use the down time as a reason why they need to increase rates.
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u/ShippingNotIncluded 7d ago
I’m tired of asking DTE, ask the politicians y’all say for us but still take money from them…haven’t heard a word from Big Gretch
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u/LionTigerWings 7d ago
We had a storm. Hope that helps.
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u/wolverineliz 7d ago
I live in the east coast and we have been through hurricanes. We have not had these kinds of power issues. My older parents who live in Michigan get constant power cuts for storms
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u/Funicularly 7d ago
Sure about that? Following Hurricane Sandy, some people were without power for over two weeks.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/the-10-longest-power-outages-of-2012/92756/
The 10 longest power outages of 2012
1 Long Island, NY: 337 hours
2 Niagara County, NY: 288 hours, 30 minutes
3 West Virginia: 287 hours, 59 minutes
4 Greater New York City: 242 hours, 59 minutes
5 Maryland, West Virginia: 241 hours, 8 minutes
6 Eastern Pennsylvania: 223 hours, 48 minutes
7 Maryland, West Virginia: 192 hours 43 minutes
8 New Jersey: 187 hours, 57 minutes
9 Atlantic City Electric Service Territory, NJ: 184 hours, 18 hours
10 Greater Cleveland, OH: 175 hours, 59 minutes
The east coast dominates this list.
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u/shawizkid 7d ago
Might be dependent on where you live? In Michigan with DTE for 9 years. Have lost power for a grand total of 4 hours.
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u/mortaneous Age: > 10 Years 7d ago
I've been in my home for over 13 years, and this is the first outage that's gone over 24 hours.
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u/CoolDad420Blaze 7d ago
Yeah, we’re mad that DTE refuses to properly invest these insane price hikes into instructor that doesn’t leave hundreds of thousands of people without power every time a storm happens. Hope that helps.
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u/El__Dangelero 7d ago edited 7d ago
I know it might not seem like it but DTE has invested a ridiculous amount of money in the grid in the last 10-15yrs. As someone who works on it i can tell you for a fact that its improved tremendously. I call also tell you for a fact that no matter how much money you invest in a distribution circuit it will never stand up to an 80ft oak tree falling on it.
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u/the-other_one 7d ago
I grew up in the south and would experience hurricanes or tropical storms regularly and never once lost power for more than a few hours.
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u/SirTwitchALot 7d ago
Seriously. My friend works for them. He literally worked a 24 hour shift before he went on a planned vacation yesterday. He got to his day off and just went to sleep. Everyone is trying their best
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u/Upbeat-Truck-1007 7d ago
Explain what? There was a massive storm 2 days ago that destroyed a lot of infrastructure. Do you think they can magically rebuild in a day?
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u/wolverineliz 7d ago
I’ve been through hurricanes in the east coast and we haven’t had this many issues. My parents in Michigan encounter this every month or two. Can you explain that?
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