Ok, this is a bit of a departure from my usual posts, but this is a big issue in my township. A local utility is considering building the second-largest power plant in the state a few miles from my house. To make a vast understatement, I am not a fan and have concerns.
Last night, the township held a special meeting to let reps from the power company tell us about the project. Here are my notes from the June 1, 2026 township meeting.
What is the project in question?
- Building a 1450 megawatt (Mw) gas-fired power plant in Lima Township, Michigan. This would be the second-largest power plant in the state behind the Campbell coal facility.
- Technology: combined cycle plant with 2 gas turbines. This is the most efficient power plant type, with the most compact footprint per Mw. Closed-loop water usage. 95% carbon sequestration is required by law (to be store underground elsewhere, not on site).
- The site is 120 acres, but the plant would not use all that area. They could not give any specifics about footprint, height, etc. except to say that stack would not be 220 ft tall (as suggested by a citizen) and that the Jackson and Zeeland plants are sort of similar but likely much smaller.
Why is this site under consideration?
Consumer’s said it was a combination of three main factors:
- The presence of a 48″ natural gas line AND a 345 high voltage power line already crossing the property
- The location east of their current plants means less loss moving the electricity from the west side of the state to the east side
- The willingness of the landowner to sell the property
What is the current status of the project?
- Consumer’s Power is paying a fee to the landowners to hold an exclusive option to purchase at any point in the next 3 years (extendable to 5 years).
- They have not decided whether they will buy the land or not.
- No one else can buy the land until they opt out.
- They will not develop any plans (e.g., building or site plans) or do any studies (e.g., environmental impact) until they decide they will buy the land and go forward with the project.
What will impact their decision whether to go forward?
- Approval from MISO (the multi-state power grid operator Michigan belongs to). MISO is currently working through a queue of project proposals that were submitted in 2022.
- MISO would need to determine that there is a need for a plant of this size in this general area. Note that all power generated goes to MISO first (“the grid”) and then Consumer’s and DTE buy it back and distribute it when its needed by their customers. So it’s not just a matter of “do Consumer’s Energy customers need the plant; it’s feeding into the entire Midwest grid.
- New/expanded gas facilities at their Karn and Thetford sites are a priority, but but they expect to need yet more capacity by the time another plant can be approved and built. The gas lines at those sites are too small to expand beyond their projected sizes of 456Mw and 990Mw.
- The Campbell coal plant, 1560Mw, is likely to close in this timeframe, decreasing current capacity.
- While they mentioned that they “talk with the community,” they said that the opinions of the local population is a lesser consideration. It was also pointed out that by building outside of their customer territory, none of their own customers are impacted by the presence of the plant – leaving us with less leverage when we complain.
Possible impacts
- Highly visible site with tall stack
- Noise and bright light 24/7, supposedly within EGLE limits, but they didn’t mention what those levels were (web search suggests 65-75 decibels at the property line, which is pretty loud)
- Air pollution – again, unspecified
- Decrease in property values in the vicinity – there was some hint about “our real estate people would offer some assistance” but not sure what this means. And people don’t want to be bought out of their homes – they want to stay in their homes and on their land and not have that ruined by a power plant going in!
Some thoughts
Ok, those are my factual notes. Now for a few thoughts:
- We can absolutely express our dislike to Consumer’s Energy, our state reps, and others – let them know this project isn’t welcome here. But that probably won’t be enough.
- At the township level, this project doesn’t align with master plan. And gas plants are not included in the recent law where the state can override local control to force solar and wind projects to go ahead over the objections of local residents and governments. So, perhaps we could add some township regulations that would make it more difficult to build a plant in the township. For example, could we add light and air pollution ordinances at the township level?
- While the power doesn’t go straight from this plant to the Saline data center project, one of the reps said after the meeting that data centers are increasing the demand for electricity across the grid at the fastest rate since the 1970s. So – opposing data centers and vocally avoiding AI (e.g., demanding non-AI options in the tech we use) could reduce the demand. If there’s less demand, there’s less incentive to build new power plants.
I also found myself wondering about solar. I don’t want to lose 120 acres of farmland to any power project, but at least solar would be quiet and non-polluting. However, the rep said they generally need about 10 acres to produce 1 Mw of electricity (and I don’t know if that accounts for battery storage, too). They would need over 14,000 acres of solar to produce the power of the proposed plant. That’s 40% of all the land in Lima Township. And wind is even more distributed – more like 35-50 acres per Mw. I don’t see any way to avoid building another plant (somewhere) other than reducing demand.
But let’s make sure they don’t build it here.
