Consumers Energy crews working to restore power after high winds strike Michigan - UpNorthLive.com
Consumers Energy crews working to restore power after high winds strike Michigan | WPBN
Consumers Energy crews are working to restore power to homes and business after a storm with high winds swept through Michigan on Saturday.
The goal is to restore power to all 50,000 customers by the end of the day Sunday.
“Winds that exceeded 50 MPH today knocked down branches, limbs and entire trees from the Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids area moving north and east across the state. Our commitment is to get the lights back on for everyone, as quickly and as safely as we can,” said Tim Sparks, Consumers Energy’s Officer in Charge for this storm.
“We appreciate the patience of everyone who has been affected, and we take seriously our job to restore power," Sparks said.
As of Saturday afternoon, Consumers Energy has put 400 people to work in restoring power and working with customers, including over 100 crews and electric service workers. Additional crews will be joining this evening.
Customers can report an outage and check the status of outage by visiting www.ConsumersEnergy.com/OutageCenter. They can also sign up to get outage alerts and restoration times sent to a phone, email or text message, Text ‘REG' to 232273 or visit www.ConsumersEnergy.com/alerts.
Sparks urged people to stay at least 25 feet away from any downed power line, and especially to keep children and pets away, and report the issue by calling 9-1-1 and Consumers Energy at 800-477-5050. Consumers Energy also asks the public to keep a safe distance from crews.
Consumers Energy urges the public to keep important safety tips in mind:
Consumers Energy is Michigan’s largest energy provider, providing natural gas and/or electricity to 6.7 million of the state’s 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.