Detroit Edison is continuing its improvements to the electrical service on the island, as drivers along Meridian Road would have noticed this week.
Construction barrels and equipment lined the shoulder of the road as employees worked on the project.
Detroit Edison announced Monday that it would continue its nearly $10 million reliability improvement program on Grosse Ile this year. The related expansion of a substation is set for completion by the summer cooling season.
In addition, company officials said one of the three cables that connect the island to the electric grid will be replaced due to its recent failure.
The three cables that link the city to the electric grid are below the Detroit River at the Trenton Channel. One of the cables failed last year, although only one cable is required to serve the island except during summer peak demand periods.
Representatives of DTE who were at Monday's board meeting said that only one cable is needed to "carry the load."
The other two serve as backups.Since one of those two failed, it is being replaced.
No power outages have resulted from the cable failure, but Detroit Edison immediately started design work to replace the 3,000 feet of cable. The $2 million project also involved developing contingency plans should there have been a problem with the other working cables.
The cable project is expected to be completed by June 1.
According to the organization, Detroit Edison started improving electric service on Grosse Ile in 2005 and so far has completed pole-top maintenance and replaced 4.5 miles of overhead power lines with cable more resistant to tree branch problems.
Workers have also cleared lines of tree branches and replaced other power lines.
Through the work, a third transformer will be installed at the substation on Macomb, said Scott Simons, spokesman for Detroit Edison.
"We're expanding the substation there to provide better service to customers on the island," he said.
Currently, the workers are boring into the ground to put in the power line to hook it up underground.
The work is from the substation on Macomb up to Meridian and south to Bellevue, said Barry Sedlock, director of the Department of Public Services.
When the reliability improvement program is complete, the island will have four new circuits, which will better distribute electric load throughout the community.
When completed, Grosse Ile will have 10 circuits in total, Simons said.
"We have not been satisfied with the level of service afforded to our customers on Grosse Ile and years ago started looking into what kinds of projects would be necessary to improve service reliability there," said Molly Luempert-Coy, DTE Energy regional manager, in a written statement.
"When the substation work is complete, Grosse Ile will have greatly improved electric service."
During the course of the project, some disruption of traffic and a little pause in electrical service may be required.
That may include cutting down Ferry Road traffic to one lane for several weeks, beginning in March.
Also, power may be disrupted for one or two hours on one day in April.
The electric company and township officials will work together to prepare for the possible outage and traffic changes.
More definite information will be released in upcoming weeks.
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