janc
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Green Power in Ann Arbor
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Dec 5 19:47 UTC 2006 |
Saturday, when the Grex walkers were passing Barton Dam, we got to
wondering if it was still actually being used to generate electricity.
So later I started googling. It was fairly hard to find much good
information on this. Here's what I got:
The Huron River drops something like 42 feet in the Ann Arbor area,
which is quite substantial. Originally the Huron must have been quite a
fast river, with rapids and such. That's part of the reason that Ann
Arbor was built here - it was a good place for water driven mills and
such.
The Detroit Electric Company built a series of hydro-electric dams along
the Huron River early in the 20th century: Barton (1912), Argo (1913),
Geddes (aka Dixboro) (1916), and Superior (1919). There were plans for
others that were never built, including one at Delhi.
At some point, power generation was shut down at most of the dams, but
the city eventually took over operation of the dams and power generation
was re-activated at Barton in 1983, and it is still generating power
today, as is the Superior Dam (I'm not sure if that one was ever turned
off). There is no power generation at Argo or Geddes.
I remember, as a child, being taken on a tour of Geddes dam which was
then being refurbished (tour guide was Joe O'Neil, who was a friend of
my father and took us around many of the cooler things his construction
company was building in those days, including the Power Center (which
never generated any power)). Anyway, at the time, they built a concrete
blockhouse near the dam that contained a turbine. But not only is that
turbine not being used, at sometime in the last few decades the turbine
house completely vanished. Dunno what that was about.
Anyway, the two active dams, Barton and Superior, together generate on
the average about 5700 MWh/year (averaged from 1994 to 2003). This
fluctuates a lot from year to year, due to variations in rainfall and
such, I suppose. The power is sold to DTE, earning the city over $3
million per year (I think).
Lately there has been a lot of talk about removing Argo dam. Years ago
there was talk of reactivating power generation there. I think the
water drop there is less than at Barton and Superior, but it seems like
that might be a "greener" and more profitable alternative than removing
it.
The city also generates power at the old landfill. This has been sealed
off, and the methane gas that leaks off of it is collected and burnt to
generate electricity. This generates about 5400 MWh/year, almost as
much as the two dams combined, and produces earnings of about $2.5
million dollars.
There is another 3MWh/year produced by the solar panels at the Leslie
Science Center. A drop in the bucket really.
The report I saw said that these sources provided for almost 25% of Ann
Arbor's electicity needs, but I'm not sure if this was 25% of the
electricity bought by the city government (which would still be a lot,
considering that it would includes street lighting and such) or 25% of
all the electricity used in Ann Arbor.
I thought this was really pretty cool, and pretty impressive. I'm kind
of surprised I knew nothing about it.
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