DTE outage operations center gives high-tech help in emergencies

DTE Energy outage center speeds response and restoration during emergencies

DTE's technological growth is not just in applications and processes; it's also in the equipment used in the field, like drones.

FOX 2 - Severe weather can happen during any season. As the threat continues to grow, DTE Energy is showing how new technology helps prevent power outages - and restore them sooner, if they do happen. 

The backstory:

Prior to 2021 when severe weather hit DTE's service area, which covers SE Michigan and the state’s thumb area, DTW used a board to monitor the real-time status of the electric system.

Bradley Craig is the DTE director of Emergency Preparedness and Response.

"We have these small magnets called pins where we would update, and put it right on the board as soon as we gave an operating order, or we saw an alarm come in, to reflect the real-time status."

Fast-forward to today, and the real-time monitoring for DTE takes place in the state-of-the-art operations center.

"Right now we’re in the electric system operations control room, so this is the heartbeat of the electric system," Craig said. "Up here on the board, we real-time visibility on what our electric system looks like."

This space is staffed around the clock.

"When we expect severe weather to come into the electric system, every single one of these desks in this control room will be manned, and ready to respond to customer outages," he said.

The coordination leads to a quicker response for customers, Craig added.

"We have a near real-time application that automatically prioritizes and categorizes it for the right type of field crew so that we can respond efficiently," he said. "That translates to about an hour to an hour and a half per crew of wait time eliminated for a crew to arrive on a customer’s report."

DTE's technological growth is not just in applications and processes; it's also in the equipment used in the field.

"Through our investments that we’re making, we're installing smart devices out in the field, and that’s attributed to over 29,000 outages just last year alone, that have been avoided," he said.

DTE is also using drones in its severe weather response.

"Those hard to reach areas in the backyards and the easements," Craig said. "You need to employ some kind of drone technology and we do that across our system. So as we’re preparing for our upcoming storm season, you may see those out as weather passes through."