Electric Utility
LBWL's largest power plant is the Otto E. Eckert Station, and was named after the utility's general manager from 1927 to 1966. The coal-fired generating station is located in downtown Lansing on the Grand River, adjacent to General Motors' Grand River Assembly Plant and the now-demolished Lansing Car Assembly Plant. Begun in 1922 and completed the following year, the power station has undergone numerous expansions and additions since, with the addition of the three chimneys in 1981. The station has a generating capacity of 351 megawatts, produced by burning coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin. This plant has three 615-foot (187 m) smokestacks, the tallest self-supporting structures in south central Michigan. These stacks are visible from fifteen miles (24 km) on a clear day. The stacks are known locally by the names of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, after the fishermen in a poem of the same name by Eugene Field. It was announced in May 2008 that the plant is scheduled for a phased decommissioning that is scheduled to begin in 2017 and end in 2025.
The LBWL's secondary generating plant is the Claud R. Erickson Station, named after general manager of the utility from 1966 to 1972. The plant located in Delta Township on Canal Road just south of Mt. Hope Road. This plant, built in 1973, is coal-fired and has a single generating unit with a capacity of 159 megawatts and is connected to the power grid by three 138,000 volt lines.
The utility's power plant inventory once included the 25 megawatt Ottawa Street Station on the Grand River in downtown Lansing. This steam and electrical plant operated from its completion in 1940 until 1992, when it was decommissioned as a power station, with steam and electrical production transferred to the Eckert Station. The station was put back into partial usage as a water chiller plant for the utility in 2001 to cool downtown buildings. In late 2007, LBWL sold the most vacant station to Accident Fund Insurance Company, which was renovated into their headquarters. At the end of December of that year, in preparation for the renovation, the iconic smokestack portion of the building was taken down.
In July 2010, the Board of Water & Light announced plans to construct a $182 million natural gas-powered electric and steam generation plant along Washington Avenue in Lansing's REO Town district with a capacity of 100 megawatts. The eight-story, 160,000 sq ft (15,000 m2) facility is expected to create 180 jobs upon its opening in January 2013. Construction of the new power station began in May 2011.
During periods of high demand, the Lansing Board of Water and light purchases 146 megawatts of electricity from Detroit Edison's Belle River Power Plant located in East China Township, Michigan, south of Port Huron. The LBWL has two 138KV interconnections (Davis-Oneida line and the Davis-Enterprise line) with Consumers Energy/METC from its substation on Jolly Road just east of Pennsylvania Ave on Lansing's south side.
Read more about this topic: Lansing Board Of Water & Light
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