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MARQUETTE -- The Marquette Board of Light and Power will mark two significant energy developments this summer that seem to promise -- not only greater reliability and energy independence -- but a more environmentally friendly way to keep the lights on.
BLP Assistant Director David Lynch said the community has been very positive about the Marquette Energy Center and the Marquette Community Solar Garden.
"The feedback from the community is everybody wants clean air and clean water," Lynch said.
Construction on the solar garden project will commence in early July with completion targeted for early- to mid-August, Lynch said.
"The community solar is a nice complement to the (MEC) project," he added. "It allows the community to be able to acquire some of their energy from a carbon-free source."
Solar update
The community solar garden, in the works for more than three years, will offer residents and businesses the opportunity to benefit from locally produced renewable energy without having to install solar panels on their property. The garden will be located on site at BLP offices. Customers can participate by investing in the garden and receiving credit on their utility bill for the power produced.
Registration has officially opened to all BLP customers for the purchase of community solar panels at the price of $499 per panel. Customers can sign up online at www.mblpcommunitysolar.org.
Lynch said in the first 11 days of the program's soft rollout, nearly 40 percent of panels were reserved or paid for.
There are 480 panels available in the program's initial phase.
"They're selling real fast," Lynch said.
The BLP is contracting with Peninsula Solar, a Marquette-based solar equipment supplier, for construction. The engineering phase for the project, with Marquette-based architectural firm Integrated Designs, Inc., is expected to wrap up next week, Lynch said.
Lynch and a representative from Peninsula Solar will be at the Marquette Climate March Saturday in the Marquette Commons from about noon to 2 p.m. to answer questions and provide information on the solar project.
The BLP will be presented with a formal "thank you" at the event for its efforts on the project.
In December, the BLP Board of Directors set the buy-back rate customers would be credited for the panels at 6.3 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Chairman Tom Tourville said at this week's BLP meeting that he's excited, even though their strategy is to start the buy-back rate on the low end.
"We're going into this project admittedly with … a more conservative approach," Tourville said. "We've taken in my view the most black and white approach of documenting what is the value of solar to this utility, and that's the price that the customers get. But I really, fully believe that as we move forward in the next year or so that the more we learn, the more we're able to quantify additional values of solar to us, the more we can make that quantifiable and monetize it, then that's only (going to) be to the benefit of the people that have signed up."
MEC emissions cuts
Numbers from the BLP show the new energy center -- with its three Wartsila natural gas-powered reciprocating engines -- will cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than half.
The MEC, which is nearly complete after a year of construction, required a $65 million public investment and a 30 percent electric rate hike last year. The infrastructure was needed to ensure reliability, officials said.
Data compiled by BLP Manager of Planning and Utility Compliance Erik Booth, based on the actual emissions of the Shiras Steam Plant's Unit 3 last year, show the MEC is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 54 percent and nitrous oxide emissions by 85 percent.
Greenhouse gases, emitted through the burning of fossil fuels, act like a greenhouse and trap heat in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Both carbon dioxide and nitrous oxides are greenhouse gases, however, the impact of one pound of nitrogen dioxide on atmospheric warming is almost 300 times that of a pound of carbon dioxide, according to the EPA.
Meanwhile, sulfur dioxide, which causes asthma and other health problems, as well as damage to trees and acid rain, will see a 99 percent reduction with the MEC.
"So yes, our Wartsilas aren't as clean as solar," Tourville said. "But hey, we're (moving) in the right direction."
The MEC's environmental benefits were secondary to the more immediate need that drove its construction.
"The MEC project was spawned out of a reliability issue with our largest unit Shiras," Lynch said. "If we lost that in a cold part of the year or any part of the year, we'd have a reliability issue. … We added the MEC to relieve that issue."
People are not building coal plants anymore for economic and regulatory reasons, Lynch said.
"It's just too expensive. With the price of natural gas at this time and looking out at the forecast past 2030, this is (going to) be very cost-competitive as compared to coal, so you're (going to) see a lot more gas generation come online," Lynch said.
If SEMCO Energy Gas Co. builds a new gas line in Marquette County, as the company proposed to state agencies last year, that will give the BLP even more options, Lynch said. Plus, the Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corp., the new utility formed out of WEC Energy Group's assets in the U.P., plans to build similar natural gas energy plants in Negaunee Township and Baraga Township, and are currently in contractual stages with Wartsila.
UMERC officials have toured the MEC already, he said.
"So the future looks bright. This was a big decision the city had to make, and the ratepayers had to make, and the city commission, and right now's looking like it was very, very much the right choice," Lynch said.
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Mary Wardell can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248. Her email address is mwardell@miningjournal.net.