By Kevin Lavery, WKAR News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-970405.mp3
Lansing, MI – Nearly a year after the project was first announced, the Lansing Board of Water and Light will break ground Wednesday at the future site of a new co-generation power plant. Officials are heralding the potential economic and environmental benefits the facility is expected to bring.
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The BWL will build a co-generation plant, meaning it will burn natural gas to produce both steam and electricity. General manager Peter Lark says when the plant comes online in the summer of 2013, it will replace the coal-fired steam units at the nearby Moores Park plant, which was built in the 1950's.
"We burn 139,000 tons of coal every year at that steam plant; just the steam plant," Lark says. "That's 139,000 tons of coal we will not be burning starting July 1, 2013."
With its modern energy efficiency controls, the new facility will replace four existing coal-fired steam plants in Lansing. Those units now supply power to such customers as General Motors, Lansing Community College and Cooley Law School. Lark says the co-gen plant is designed to feed a growing appetite for energy.
"Primarily, we would expect the two gas-fired units to be able to satisfy all the steam needs of the city of Lansing, and that includes growth, because we do expect growth in the city of Lansing," says Lark.
The $182 million facility will be built in Lansing's REO Town neighborhood. All told, the project stands to create about a thousand jobs. Of that total, BWL will bring in about 180 permanent employees.
Once ground is broken, the massive lot on south Washington Avenue will be a buzz of activity for the next two years. Joe Manzella lives one block north of the site. He also serves on the board of the REO Town Commercial Association. He says nearby business owners and residents are expecting some disruptions, but he says it's a small price to pay.
"We're all kind of on the same page, that there might be some hiccups and challenges, but the overall benefit to the area far outweighs any short-term minor inconveniences that we've got," Manzella says. "I mean, it's just transformative."
Lansing mayor Virg Bernero agrees. He's pleased the Board of Water and Light chose to invest in a neighborhood that for years struggled with urban blight. Bernero says REO Town is finally on the cusp of resurgence.
"And they were struggling a bit," Bernero notes. "It's a tough economy; we're lucky that the place didn't go completely under. And so it's exactly, I think, the right development at the right time."
The project will include an added development. The Lansing Board of Water and Light will refurbish the former Grand Trunk Western Railroad Depot on south Washington. The century-old historic property adjacent to the site will include office space and rooms for community use.
But the plant promises to be more than an economic catalyst. The BWL's Peter Lark says with the elimination of Lansing's four coal-fired units, the co-gen facility will yield a 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions, and about a 90 percent decrease in nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury.
"Those are tremendous decreases," Lark says. "That makes this whole community a heck of a lot cleaner. So this is important from that point of view."
The cleaner plant will come with higher rates. Lark says electricity customers will see a 3.75 percent rate increase in 2012 and 2013. Steam customers will see a one to two percent per year increase.
Civic leaders will break ground at the site at 10 o'clock Wednesday morning. Construction is expected to begin in about two weeks.