PORT HURON — Construction on a site off 10th Avenue north of the Blue Water Bridge over the last year has been hard to miss as crews erect a new electric substation, replace underground infrastructure, and crane over nearby transformers in bucket trucks.
Site plans for the new DTE Energy facility were first OK’d by the city two years ago.
Now, however, organizers from the company said they’re expecting the substation’s construction to wrap up by the end of this year with other work to transfer power distribution from DTE’s current, nearly century-old facility nearby off Pine Grove Avenue continuing into 2025 and 2026.
It’s all part of a massive investment of over $100 million to rebuild the distributor’s Port Huron infrastructure, which services 5,000 customers in the area. Sandeev Sarna, DTE’s regional customer operations director, said they’re upgrading from the 4.6 kilovolts of power fed into the Pine Grove substation to 13.2 kilovolts at the new site, which he called the Neon Substation, in addition to the replacement of overhead and underground infrastructure, electrical poles, and more.
“DTE strategy around circuit improvement work, automation, tree-trimming, conversion, is all encompassed in this project,” Sarna said during a tour of the site Tuesday afternoon. “So, in order to start, tree-trimming was completed to reclaim our easements, to get us access to the poles.
“From there, we are converting, enhancing, or upgrading the assets. You saw bigger poles. In some instances, we’re putting concrete poles and steel poles in, fiberglass cross arms that offer us more strength, less failure points, and then, bigger wire to support the voltage. So, you’ve got bigger equipment, which is more sturdy, and can also withstand higher winds.”
What does the project entail?
Although multiple DTE officials reflected amid Tuesday’s tour that the existing Pine Grove facility has long-remained reliable, Irene Lynn, a principal specialist for DTE, said the new substation infrastructure should last “at least 50 or more years,” citing a big reason infrastructure can be replaced is because of new technology — and not necessarily because of age or wear and tear.
“A lot of reasons why things might be changed out would be, say, there’s a new way for us to capture the data, right? Then, we probably replace the switch here, the breakers, things like that,” she said.
In addition to the Pine Grove substation, the affected footprint of DTE infrastructure entails 20 miles of circuitry overhead.
“Including the underground, we’re looking at 30 miles,” Sarna said.
That also includes 1,714 new poles.
As of Tuesday, there were often new tall electrical poles installed beside the old wooden ones they’ll replace in that area of northern Port Huron — something crews were on site addressing the upgrades high up at transformer level in multiple areas.
Sarna said they have a dozen groups of three to five between subcontractors and DTE facilitators, or 50 to 60 linemen, out at any given time.
“By the end of the year, into maybe the first quarter, we’ll be completing all the pre-conversion work,” he said. “There may be some spots that we’ll continue to work on the next two years, but I’d say for most of our customers here … the pre-conversion work will end by the end of the year.”
“Then, by 2025-26, we’re expecting Pine Grove will be decommissioned,” Sarna said, “and I believe the state at that point, MDOT will take over the property.”
Why is this happening now?
Carl Sheko, a project manager for DTE, said the new substation site is on just under four acres. It was previously green space left by the Michigan Department of Transportation following a massive of acquisition of residential and neighborhood properties nearly two decades ago ahead of plans for the long-awaited U.S. Customs plaza expansion.
DTE formally took over the parcel off 10th Avenue from MDOT late last year, according to the St. Clair County register of deeds.
Now, Sarna said MDOT and still-pending plaza plans remain a contributing factor to the timing of their substation construction.
“We have put this on an accelerated timeline, and so, that’s why you’re seeing parallel activities,” he said. “The substation work and the overhead pre-conversion work (are) happening at the same time. Typically, a project like this can span over several years.”
An aim overall with the project, Sarna said, was in part to introduce a larger capacity for power, or enough that “supports a lot of the future of EVs and other community growth.”
On Tuesday, Lynn said even with the capacity upgrade, the primary load used in Port Huron, which is roughly 15 to 16 megavolt-amperes, doesn’t change offhand. Still, earlier mid-tour, she said, “It’s easily enough to cover a new hospital (and) a couple new industry buildings.”
Based on transformer sizes, Sarna later added, “You’re going to get right away about a 30% increase,” agreeing facilities such as a hospital, a large manufacturing site, or several light industrial builds “could definitely be supported.”
The other piece pushing the project forward, DTE officials said, was reliability.
“This project also helps us get to our commitment, which we have made recently and committed to by 2029 reducing outages by 30% and reducing the amount of time people are out by half,” said Dave Akerly, a senior communications strategist for the company.
Previously, another DTE spokesperson said the rebuild was expected to increase reliability by 90%.
How will this affect customers?
As with ongoing work over the last several months, Sarna said any resident affected by construction or who lives near a pole or transformer being upgraded should get a heads up or knock at home before crews begin work.
Both he and Akerly said DTE tries to make sure residents are aware of the work, particularly if there’s going to be some sort of hindrance to a property owner, or interruption in services.
Overall, customers should receive notification of any planned interruption. And once the conversion happens in each area, Sarna said they’re generally able to get power back up within a couple hours.
Sarna said the infrastructure upgrade wouldn’t directly affect rates charged to customers.
“However, what this will allow us to do is be more efficient and help drive down our cost to maintain this grid and to respond to outages,” he said. “So, eventually, through these investments, we will be driving down the cost to maintain for our customers.”
Contact reporter Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com.