Over the weekend prior to Christmas, more than 500,000 homes and businesses here in Michigan lost power in an ice storm. Hundreds of out-of-state workers took their Christmas holiday week and drove their trucks to Michigan to work in cold, snowy weather to return the power to these customers. I want to first thank every one of the linemen, troublemen, and vegetation specialists for their work at restoring the power. All of the people in Michigan thank you.
No, the power system and smart grid equipment didn’t fail
Many people think that the power system and the smart grid equipment failed, which in many ways can’t be further from the truth. DTE and Consumer’s Energy got better pictures of the outages where smart meters and other communicating grid equipment was deployed then they ever had before. Initial dispatch was timely and effective, even if most people would not believe it.
