Power Reliability & Forestry

We love trees. We just hate power outages.

You depend on us to deliver your power reliably. And we take your trust seriously.

Indiana Michigan Power is constantly working to improve the reliability of your power by minimizing the number and length of outages, and the number of customers affected by each outage.

Of course, outages occur for a variety of reasons, including lightning, ice storms and animals. But trees and brush are the number one cause of all power outages! Just one tree limb can knock out your power and the power to hundreds of neighbors and business. In fact, a single tree initiated a power outage in 2003 for over 50 million Americans and Canadians from the Midwest to the East Coast.

That's why we have a comprehensive program (sometimes referred to as "Vegetation Management") to manage trees and brush that grow around power lines – and it’s proven to be effective at improving the reliability of our power service to you. Since 2021, our efforts have reduced tree-related outages by 29%. Additionally, this work has reduced the amount of time customers were without power from tree-related outages by 44% over the past five years.

At least every four years in Indiana and every five years in Michigan, you may see our crews in your neighborhood assessing the trees around our power lines and equipment, trimming or removing any threats. We use our expertise to spot and remove threatening limbs, keeping the safety of our crews, communities and infrastructure in mind.

Our Forestry teams help support the animals at the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo and Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend. Through our Branch to Browse partnership, some of the trees and branches our forestry crews regularly trim are donated and delivered to the zoos.