DTE Energy is moving forward with plans to build an additional substation in Ferndale, according to an update from regional representatives at the Ferndale City Council meeting Monday night.

DTE Energy Regional Manager Michael Palchesko and DTE Supervising Engineer Ron Gerkin attended the meeting and presented an "Electrical System Health Check" for southeast Oakland County.

Gerkin said power in the city of Ferndale has been more reliable with recent improvements made to the system such as tree-trimming, pole-top maintenance and other updates.

"The reliability of Ferndale and the area has been much better. It hasn't been perfect but we haven't lost entire substations and the times that we have had outages they've been relatively quickly fixed," Gerkin said. "We don't foresee [last summer's incident] happening this summer."

A new substation, which had been discussed as an option last year, is also in the works to help service new growth in the area. DTE has already identified land east of Woodward and south of Nine Mile Road for the substation, Gerkin said, and DTE aims to purchase the land by the end of the year.

Getting a new substation would take about one and a half to two years, mainly because it takes about a year for the major equipment to come in once it has been ordered. After that, overhead line work and underground work would also need to be done.

"I think probably the closest that we would be able to get it in now would be the end of 2014 probably," Gerkin said. "But we feel that with the changes that we've made from the situation that we had last summer that if we don't have a double contingency we should be able to serve all the load for the next two years without interrupting."

Though he can't guarantee there will be no outages, Gerkin pointed out multiple updates and checks done in the past several months. "I have confidence that the circuits are in good shape and capable of serving the city," he said.

Ferndale Mayor Dave Coulter thanked DTE representatives for working with city management over the past year. "I appreciate the open communication," he said.