(WWJ) While power has been restored to nearly 200,000 DTE customers following Friday's snow storm, 25,000 are still in the dark -- including some who only just got the light's back on after the previous week's ice storm.
As the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) calls for change, DTE's Executive Vice President of Distribution Operations spoke with WWJ's Jonathan Carlson about the outage issues and where improvements need to be made.
According to Paul, there were around 220,000 customers with outages by Saturday morning when the storm had cleared.
DTE crews worked a long day clearing trees, removing downed lines and making repairs, getting nearly 200,000 homes and businesses back on line. Paul said that most customers should see power restored by Monday night but that a few smaller outage areas may have to wait until Tuesday.
He praised the DTE work crews -- which include 3,500 out-of-state workers -- for their hard work and committment to safety standards.
Paul also discussed recent concerns about the DTE Outage Map and the accuracy of the numbers shown in the Outage Center.
"We do not under report outages," Paul said. He said that the newly launched Outage Map is based entirely on data from meters. While the algorithm currently overestimates the number of outages, Paul assured customers that the map continues to be calibrated to be more precise.
When asked about the MPSC's call for accountability from utility companies, Paul said, "We are very much aligned. We need to continue to get better."
Paul asserted that the end-of-February ice storm was a severe weather event and that any grid would have been impacted by it. He did, however, acknowledege that DTE needs to continue investing in the power grid.
"We need to continue to rebuild and automate," Paul said, stating that their grid is one of the older grids in the country and was origianlly built when Detroit was industrializing.
Trimming trees and keeping up with routine maintenance were also mentioned as ways to limit the extent of outages in the future.
Following last month's ice storm, many were without power for more than five days with DTE announcing that the company would automatically credit $35 to anyone who had waited four days or more to have electricity restored.
In addition to the MPSC, state lawmakers also called for reform and said hearings would be arranged.
