Consumers Energy plans to invest nearly $24 million in smart technology in 2024 to prevent power outages and has deployed nearly 3,000 line sensors and over 100 automatic transfer reclosers (ATRs) throughout Michigan.
"Consumers Energy has made a commitment with our Reliability Roadmap to ultimately restore power in 24 hours or less," said Chris Laird, Consumers Energy's vice president of electric operations.
While ATRs isolate outages by detecting power loss and automatically re-routing power in another direction, line sensors predict problems on the grid and alert crews in real time with exact locations, preventing outages before they happen.
Both the technologies help crews to identify problems quickly and precisely, and reduce the size and length of power outages. According to Consumers Energy estimates, ATRs prevented outages for nearly 70,000 customers in 2023 by isolating outages to the smallest area possible.
Smart technology is a key component of the Consumers Energy's Reliability Roadmap for a stronger electric grid. The plan also includes investments in forestry work and infrastructure upgrades, like installing iron poles to deal with Michigan's severe weather and burying overhead powerlines.
