WALKER, Mich. — Consumers Energy is opening a new $9.5 million electric substation that will power homes and businesses in Walker.
The substation is part of Consumers Energy's Reliability Roadmap, created last year to act as a blueprint to reduce outages and restore power to customers in 24 hours.
"We've got a commitment to a Reliability Roadmap which improves our system," said CEO and President of Consumers Energy Garrick Rochow. "If a customer is interrupted, we want to restore that customer within 24 hours. That's if Mother Nature brings us a tornado or severe weather. And so ultimately, this is fully redundant. It's brand new equipment. There's greater automation. And so it again, improves reliability as well in this community."
Rochow said there are several substations throughout the community and as more homes and businesses connect, they take up a certain amount, or percentage, of the substation.
He said eventually, the substation gets to a point where it's approaching being full, resulting in the need for another.
"And so this allows the community to grow and this is really what we do," Rochow said. "We watch that. Most people ask the question, 'What if we run out of energy?' Well, we've been around for 135 years. We're going to make sure that doesn't happen."
Rochow said the Walker community can count on Consumers Energy to have the energy they need, when they need it.