Why Not Ohio? Michigan Set To Be Midwest's Energy Producer

[irishbobcat]

  One of Michigan's major utility companies has agreed to buy electricity produced by wind turbines that will be manufactured in Saginaw and installed in the Upper Peninsula, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday.
Consumers Energy Co. in Jackson has signed an agreement with Heritage Sustainable Energy of Traverse City to buy the power. The turbines will be built by Northern Power Systems with help from 75 Michigan-based suppliers and installed in Delta County in the Upper Peninsula, an area referred to as the Garden Peninsula.
The project was prompted by a 2008 Michigan law that requires 10 percent of the state's energy to come from renewable sources by 2015, a requirement many other states share.
Granholm, who supported the requirement, said Michigan could be on the brink of becoming the wind turbine supplier to the entire Upper Midwest for electrical utilities that want to get power from the wind as well as coal, natural gas and nuclear power.
"Michigan now has all the pieces in place to manufacture large wind turbines for the renewable energy generation," Granholm said. "It's very good news for our state, and it's only the beginning."
Heritage plans to set up a wind farm in Missaukee and Osceola counties in the northern Lower Peninsula as well as Delta County.
Consumers Power President and Chief Executive John Russell said 5 percent of the utility's power now comes from renewable resources for its 1.8 million electrical customers, an amount that's being steadily increased. The company also expects to get wind-generated power from the Thumb area and, by 2012, from a wind project in Mason County along Lake Michigan.
By 2015, the company should be getting power from 1,000 wind turbines in the state, Russell said.
"We want wind (power) in Michigan because of the competitive advantage it gives us," he added.