DETROIT  — DTE Energy is working to provide more reliable electricity to customers by installing smart devices that have already prevented more than 16,000 customer outages since the beginning of the year.

The utility company aims to fully automate the grid by 2029, with crews actively installing the technology across southeastern Michigan, including on Roselawn Street in Detroit Wednesday.DTE Energy is working to provide more reliable electrDecity to customers by installing smart devices that have already prevented more than 16,000 customer outages since the beginning of the year.

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“Whether it’s snow, ice, wind, trees, the equipment that you see behind us, these smart devices really allow us to prevent outages from occurring,” said Morgan Elliott Andahazy, director of DTE’s Project Management Organization.

The devices have the ability to reroute power so less customers experience an outage. It also identifies damaged areas, speeding up restoration efforts and improves customer safety.

“When there is a downed power line on that circuit, these devices will cut off power so that that wire that’s laying on the ground is now de-energized. So if anybody were to come in contact with it, they would not be in harm’s way,” Andahazy said.

We’re told, crews will be installing more than 30 smart devices each week through the end of the year. By then, they will have added more than 675 devices to the grid.

“By the end of this year, we’ll have more than 1,200 devices installed throughout our territory,” Andahazy said.

This is all part of DTE’s five-year, $10 billion plan to reduce customer outages by 30% and cut the duration of outages in half by 2029.

DTE also plans on making upgrades to existing electrical equipment, building brand-new substations and investing in tree trimming to reduce outages caused by tree damage.