GROSSE POINTE, Mich. (WXYZ) — Thousands of DTE Energy customers in the Grosse Pointe area lost power last week when temperatures hit the mid-90s. However, the public utility company told customers earlier in the summer they had plenty of electricity for customers this year, even on the hottest days.
DTE said the issue was caused by a transmission outage, not because of a lack of supply.
Joe Bonanni, the owner of Beyond Juicery + Eatery in Grosse Pointe, explained what happened July 20, the day the power went out.
“All the managers and everyone came out of the businesses being like, ‘Hey, did you guys lose power? Did you guys lose power?’ And we were like, ‘Yeah, we lost power,’” Bonanni said.
For his business, that’s a big deal.
“When we don’t have power, all of our temperatures inside our coolers go up and once it gets past a certain temperature, we have to get rid of that product,” Bonanni explained.
He said all the lights in the building’s basement also burned out in the power outage and he had to pay to have them replaced. He’s not resting comfortably even now that the power is back on.
“Honestly, I’m still concerned about the power going out going forward,” Bonanni said.
Bonanni thinks he knows who bears responsibility.
“I would say it’s 100% DTE’s responsibility. It’s their infrastructure to maintain and to manage, just like it’s my responsibility to maintain and manage my businesses,” Bonanni said.
Gwen Wee lives in East English Village. She said the power possibly going out is a constant reality.
“We did not know in advance that it would go out, but you always have that fear it would go out,” Wee explained.
Customers in her area received letters saying in part: “The emergency outage was necessary to balance the electric load on the circuit providing power to your neighborhood due to the high temperatures experienced this week.”
Wee said the messaging from DTE is unclear.
“When I speak to other people in other neighborhoods, and they don’t have a person to talk to, and they don’t know who they can talk to at DTE and they don’t want to sit and wait on the phone, they get very angry because they don’t understand what the infrastructure problems are,” Wee explained.
She reflected on if DTE is providing reliable energy.
“Well, we have had two power outages. For us, it's a total of maybe six hours. So in that respect, no they have not,” Wee said.
To temporarily fix the problem, DTE installed large diesel generators, which Wee said are extremely noisy and have been running day and night.
She responded to questions about who will pay for the generators.
“Oh, well somehow, it seems like it will always come back to me,” Wee laughed.
However, Joe Musallam, DTE vice president of distribution operations, said that’s not the case.
“Their rate won’t change. There will be no difference to the local community. It’s a cost that DTE absorbs,” Musallam said.
He described what caused the outage.
“We had an underground cable failure that occurred in the Grosse Pointe area affecting a few thousand customers,” Musallam explained.
He said the heat could have contributed.
“Yeah. Certainly, the high temperatures could have played a part in maybe the cable failure,” Musallam said.
He said aging infrastructure could also played a part.
“In this particular case, this was due to a failure, and I totally understand and do apologize that it came across a little confusing, almost in fact that we didn’t have enough generation to provide for them. But we did. And we do,” Musallam said.
He explained how he thinks DTE is doing in 2022.
“Our outages in general are down. And we’ve been having good success keeping the lights on and the reliability up,” Musallam said.
He responded to DTE’s claim from earlier in the summer that they had enough power for the region.
“DTE has more than sufficient power to are able to provide for our region and our state," Musallam reiterated.
Dan Scripps, chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission, agreed.
“It’s not that we don’t have the electrons. It’s ultimately that the wires that ultimately connect to people’s houses aren’t able to deliver them. And that’s overwhelmingly the case in terms of outages,” Scripps explained.
Still, he knows this is cold comfort for customers.
“The reality is that an outage is felt at the customer level, and they don’t really care whether it’s the wires or the lack of electrons that’s the cause. The power is still out," Scripps said.
He responded to the question of who’s responsible for updating the infrastructure so transmission problems don’t happen.
“Well, it’s ultimately DTE’s job. But we have a role as the public service commission in making sure that they do what they say they’re going to do,” Scripps admitted.
He said he knows more needs to be done.
“We’re not where we need to be in terms of outages. There’s still a lot of work to happen. And it’s something that’s front of mind for the commission, certainly,” Scripps said.
