The good news in the wind power industry isn't all coming to downstate locations. Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced recently that a major power purchase agreement will bring the impetus for a large wind farm to get up and running in Delta County's Garden Peninsula.
The agreement involves companies from all over Michigan. Consumers Energy, a major downstate utility, will buy the power from Traverse City-based
Heritage Sustainable Energy. Heritage owns property on the Garden Peninsula that will become the Heritage Garden wind farm, home to large-scale wind turbines that have been 100 percent made in Michigan.
They will be made by Saginaw's Northern Power Systems and have been designed and supplied by Merrill Technologies, Inc., also near Saginaw. Then they'll be shipped to the U.P. and installed at the wind farm. Heritage then will sell the power they generate--28.6 megawatts--to Consumers Energy.
The whole project is expected to create more than 200 jobs, 137 in Saginaw and 80 in Delta County.
The U.P. is closer than you might think to the heart of the whole project; Heritage Sustainable Energy's president and CEO, Martin Lagina, is a native of Iron Mountain, and says this project is hitting on all cylinders.
"The Heritage Garden Wind Farm project exemplifies all of the intended goals of the state's renewable energy standard: Michigan-based renewable energy generation supplied to Michigan utilities, investment in local economies via job creation, material purchases and an enhanced tax base; and investment in Michigan technology and manufacturing," Lagina says. "Heritage Sustainable Energy is proud to be a leader in utility-scale wind farm development right here in our own backyard."
The U.S. Department of Energy's analysis of the future of the wind industry in Michigan concurs. It projects Michigan will create more than 30,000 jobs in the wind manufacturing sector, with the potential to generate more than 16,000 megawatts of power on land, such as in the Garden Peninsula, and a staggering 448,000 megawatts offshore.
Writer: Sam Eggleston
Source: Martin Lagina, Heritage Sustainable Energy
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