Protect yourself from our shitty infrastructure for just $22.99 per month! One-time installation fees as low as $49.99 for a limited time only!
Protect yourself from our shitty infrastructure for just $22.99 per month! One-time installation fees as low as $49.99 for a limited time only!
An email I received from the Detroit Edison (DTE) Energy Company today. The text reads:
How it works:
Installation*: DTE will install the device on your electric meter in less than 30 minutes. No need to schedule an appointment or be at home. Your home is protected as soon as the device is installed by our technicians.
Protection and Warranties: The warranty coverage provides $5,000 per event for appliances and $1,000 per event for electronics to repair or replace your household items in the event the device fails to protect against damaging surges.
Stay Connected: Your surge device comes with a FREE 20-foot power cable. In the event of a power outage, you can connect your generator to the surge device with the power cable to power your home up to the generator’s capacity. Easy access for your generator – you won’t have to run extension cords from your generator into your home.
Learn more | Enroll now
*There’s a one-time installation fee for a surge protection plus device of $49.99, which is a limited time offer and will expire on December 31, 2024. After the expiration date, the installation fee will return to its normal price of $99.99. To access the Surge Protection Plus program’s Terms and Conditions, visit dteenergy.com/sppterms.
and of course that URL is hyperlinked with a big long tracking string on the end of it so I won't be sharing it
Dumb European here; "In the event of a power outage, you can connect your generator to the surge device with the power cable to power your home up to the generator’s capacity. Easy access for your generator – you won’t have to run extension cords from your generator into your home."
Is this really a thing over there? I never had more than a flicker of outage here.
27ex European living in US
it is WILD how often the power goes out here.
Multiple times a year - sometimes for days at a time. We had to claim the contents of our fridge and freezer on insurance after it went out for 4 days.
37Where do you live that this is happening?
I ask because this hasn't been my experience ever in the US having lived in cities and states of various sizes.
I will believe there are problems some places in the US, but I would then ask: are you living in a similar area as you were in the EU in terms of population and income?
7
Yep. Happens a few times yearly for me here in the midwest, in every place I've ever lived, usually after a storm knocks out a power line or a transformer blows. It's generally not for longer than a day or two but a direct lightning strike did knock it out once for like a week. Given, my state ranks pretty low for electrical grid reliability.
Our power companies, being privatized, have very little incentive to invest in their infrastructure until it's already on its last legs and they can't avoid it anymore. So they invest in politicians that let them put it off for as long as possible instead :)
What was it they said about capitalism breeding innovation?
22I live in Texas. ~cries in Oncor~
13
Most homes in the US get their electricity via arial lines on poles vs. Europe, which buries a lot of the electrical lines.
Wires on poles go do virtually every time that there is any sort of storm. Especially in areas with lots of trees.
17Our grids are poorly regulated by comparison and also have to span much greater distances to serve the same or less amount of people.
12It depends where you live. Where I live right now I haven't had literally a single outage or flicker for over 7 years.
Up in the mountains, however... Buckle up!
6Yeah in the UK literally thr longest I've ever been without power was like 4 hours a couple of months ago when they were doing some maintainance down the street.
5Not frequently, but weather extremes and natural disasters do cause outages. I was without power for a couple weeks after a tornado came through my neighborhood. Now I own a generator.
4Thank you all for your answers! When you leave the cities here, cabling on utility poles is not uncommon, so disconnects are probable, when a tree falls in bad weather or so. Just also wanted to check if you all own a generator, because that is totally uncommon in metro areas here. If an energy provider in a city suggested or advertised an external generator connection as a bonus, he would be laughed at.
3
They’re advertising this a little wrong.
It should be $30/mo for insurance and it comes with a free surge protector and generator hookup.
Honestly if you can cancel that subscription and keep the equipment that’s probably a good value.
23- It’s an insurance plan
- Its the most expensive option
- Yup, that’s heckin expensive. You’d think the rate would go down after they installed protective equipment. Instead they’re renting the equipment to you like feckin Comcast.
12There are many causes of power surges. While one potential cause is poorly maintained equipment, that is far from the only cause. Things like lightning strikes, tree or storm damage, load fluctuations, or equipment faults can cause them. They happen quickly enough that the protective systems can't always prevent damage to equipment downstream, but those systems are designed to protect the distribution equipment, not the loads themselves. Surge protectors are designed to protect your loads from surges and are important devices to protect sensitive equipment. OP is supposedly an electrical engineer, but this is either outside of their wheelhouse or they are just trying to jump on the enshittification bandwagon.
11Remember! Capitalism isn't capable of fixing the problems that it causes, it can only exploit the people affected by the problems for higher profits
10Am I dumb or is this what your fuse box is for?
7That is not what a fuse box, well breaker box, is for. A breaker box is pretty much only designed to prevent the wiring in your house from catching fire and to prevent people from accidentally electrocuting themselves. Though, the latter is more recent than you'd like it to be. GFCI wasn't always required and I'm not even sure if AFCI is required everywhere. A breaker box will likely trip during a surge but it's not going to be instant. So until it trips, all that extra power just flows through all your devices. Surge protectors are designed to prevent that.
While I'm pretty confident about this answer, I am not an electrician or anything. I just learned a lot when I had to get my breaker box replaced and had to brings some things up to code as a result.
14
Worked on electrical utility meters for a bit and this was a built in feature... maybe it's a hardware update that would be required for outdated meters but the additional monthly service fee is kind of ridiculous.
7DTE really went downhill these past few years. Been blowing transformers left and right during weather that would otherwise be considered normal for Michigan.
No idea if it's cuz of age or unresilient setups, but the amount of power outages has been going up.
7Factually Detroit Water and Sewage wanted me to get plumbing insurance. DTE also stated publicly that any repairs or upgrades to infrastructure wont increase consumers bill , thats a fucking lie my bill has incrased by ~$75 to ~ $95 as both electricity and natiral gas are combined in one bull
3
What’s crazy is you can get a whole home surge protector in your panel for like $130 plus the cost of a breaker for your panel (~$10-20) if you don’t have an empty one of high amperage (been awhile since I installed mine but I think it needs a 50a breaker). they’re pretty simple to install but if you’re not extremely comfortable working with electricity you absolutely should get an electrician to do it and not fuck around inside your panel though. If your home is relatively new you also potentially already have this as iirc they added this to building codes in many locales in recent years
Edit: I’m realizing the monthly fee is for generator monitoring. I have a generac generator and they charge similar fees if you use their crazy overpriced hardware but the genmon project on GitHub uses a raspberry pi and some cheap cables to achieve much more robust monitoring without the need for a subscription if you have a Honeywell or generac generator. Fuck fees.
But that’s actually a decent price for a whole home surge protector + install, which makes me assume it’s probably a cheaper one. Mines one of the nicer spec’d models bc I use a decent amount of power, there are def cheaper options, plus I’m sure they get them much cheaper buying in bulk
5A subscription for surge protection is fucking stupid - that's insurance renamed; but you, OP, clearly do not understand how electricity works.
-3lol. My bachelor of science in electrical engineering begs to differ but go off I guess.
16How did you come to the conclusion that OP doesn't understand how electricity works?
3