DETROIT – DTE Energy is offering a $35 credit to certain customers who have been without power for a long period since last week’s winter storm.
FULL DTE UPDATE: Latest info on current power outages, $35 customer credits, what’s next
Ryan Stowe, the vice president at DTE Electric, said customers who were or have been without power for more than 96 hours will receive the credit.
“We’re going to process that automatically,” Stowe said. “We’ll use data from our AMI system to track which meters were out for that longer period of time, and we’ll process those credits automatically.”
Stowe said customers will not have to apply for the credit -- everyone who’s eligible will receive the $35.
More than 600,000 people lost power as rain, ice, sleet, and snow fell in Metro Detroit on Wednesday and Thursday of last week.
As of Monday, most of those customers have had their power restored, but tens of thousands still have not.
“I know that’s little comfort if you’re still without power right now, and I want you to know that I commit to you, along with the thousands of people here at DTE who are continuing to work around the clock, that this process is not going to stop until we can get every single customer restored,” Stowe said.
DTE Energy reports around 30,000 customers who lost power from the initial storm still have not had it restored.
“We’re working through kind of our primary restoration, so restoring the primary lines, getting large chunks of customers restored,” Stowe said. “But at the same time, we’ve also stood up and are running our service restoration process, where we’re trying to get individual homes that may have had their service dropped, taken down, getting those restored, as well.”
DTE Energy has seen an additional 65,000 people lose power since Friday, which includes more than 10,000 customers who lost it Monday due to another round of precipitation, Stowe said.
As of Monday afternoon, DTE Energy was specifically monitoring ice buildup north of M-59.
“I believe the weather watch lasts through about 4 p.m. and hopefully will lessen as the temperatures raise up here a little bit through the remainder of the afternoon,” Stowe said.
In response to frustration over unreliable restoration estimates, Stowe said sometimes crews think they’ve found the main cause of an outage, only to learn that there are other causes of damage behind it.
