DTE Installs Solar Panels in Lapeer

DTE Energy has installed the first of 200 thousand solar panels as part of two projects in the City of Lapeer.

DTE Energy will power nine thousand homes in Lapeer with a new solar panel park.

The array, which will include 200,000 panels, is expected to be finished by the end of the year.

Irene Dimitry is the Vice President of Business Planning and Development at the utility. She says the project is a small part of DTE Energy’s plan to generate more renewable energy in the next decade.

“We will be retiring a number of coal plants and moving toward a cleaner generating portfolio, replacing those coal plants with cleaner forms of energy such as wind  and solar and natural gas,” DImitry says

Dimitry says DTE has already surpassed the state mandate requiring 10 percent of all energy used by customers to come from renewable sources.

She says the utility will build solar panels in Detroit, Ypsilanti and Warren by the end of the year. 

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