Dive Brief:
- DTE Energy plans to build a 220-MW battery energy storage system at its retired Trenton Channel coal power plant site, which was commissioned in 1924 and shuttered in 2022, the Michigan utility said Monday.
- The four-hour lithium-ion system is expected to be the Great Lakes region’s largest battery energy storage installation when complete in 2026, DTE Energy said. The utility has no plans to repower Trenton Channel with solar, gas or other energy resources, according to a DTE Energy spokesperson.
- “The Trenton Channel Energy Center is a significant milestone in accelerating our clean energy journey,” DTE Energy Chairman and CEO Jerry Norcia said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
DTE Energy plans to more than double its energy storage capacity, which is today dominated by its 1,120-MW stake in the Ludington pumped hydro storage plant, to nearly 3 GW by 2042.
Trenton Channel would account for most of the 240 MW of battery storage additions the utility’s 2022 integrated resource plan called for by 2027. Earlier this month, DTE Energy put out a request for proposals for an additional 120 MW of standalone battery storage.
DTE Energy has no plans to add energy storage capacity at other coal plants in Michigan but does have multiple battery storage projects in various stages of development, the utility spokesperson said.
The Trenton Channel project is part of a growing trend of utilities repowering coal-fired power plant sites with zero-emissions storage or generation resources. Xcel Energy plans to complete a 710-MW solar installation at its roughly 1,780-MW Sherco power plant in Minnesota by late next year, ahead of the plant’s planned retirement in 2030, while TerraPower is in the early stages of construction on a 345-MW advanced nuclear reactor at PacifiCorp’s Naughton power plant in Wyoming.
DTE Energy’s 2022 IRP envisions a rapid transition to cleaner electricity generation amid Michigan’s legislative mandate for 50% carbon-free electricity generation by 2030 and 100% carbon-free generation by 2040.
The utility’s 2022 IRP, released prior to the legislative mandate, mapped out a 65% carbon dioxide emissions reduction from electricity generation by 2028 and a 90% reduction by 2040 relative to its 2005 baseline. The plan called for 5.4 GW of additional renewables by 2032 and 15.4 GW of additional renewables by 2042.
Under a settlement reached last year with the Michigan Public Service Commission, DTE Energy agreed to shut down its 3,066-MW coal-fired Monroe Power Plant by 2032, three years ahead of the schedule laid out in its 2022 IRP. That settlement also blessed DTE Energy’s plan to transform the 1,270-MW coal-fired Belle River power plant into a gas-fired peaker facility by 2026. The utility’s coal drawdown allows $2.4 billion previously set to be spent on coal to be redirected to “cleaner, more affordable forms of energy,” it said in its 2022 IRP.
Much of the cost of the Trenton Channel retrofit will be offset “by $140 million in tax incentives through the 2022 federal Inflation Reduction Act and its infrastructure investment provisions,” DTE Energy said.
