The BPU is preparing new biodiesel power blocks to generate emergency power. Courtesy | Sam Fry

The City of Hillsdale’s Board of Public Utilities is building two new emergency power generators in response to the nation’s recent energy insecurities. Silent Generators For Sale

The BPU plans to complete the emergency power project by summer 2024. Wholesale services provider American Municipal Power will offer a line of credit to pay for the installation.

“The COVID shutdown really got me interested in drawing a symbolic circle around Hillsdale,” Mayor Adam Stockford said. “Having been a politics student at Hillsdale myself, I had a really good grasp on the sorts of things that could be achieved by adopting a dual-federalism attitude regarding local politics and our relationship with the state.”

While Hillsdale receives enough energy from the Michigan South Central Power Agency regularly, the town requires additional megawatts to reach full emergency capacity. Depending on the season, the city uses 18 to 28 megawatts of energy daily, according to Jake Hammel, superintendent of the BPU’s electric department.

Hillsdale can currently only produce 11 megawatts during emergencies using two natural gas generators from 1970, located along the shore of Baw Beese Lake. For Hillsdale to be comfortably self-sufficient, it would need the capacity to produce 27 megawatts of its own energy.

“We do have an operator there that maintains those emergency engines and keeps the building ready to go,” Hammel said. “But those engines only run 20 to 40 hours per year depending on the number of natural disasters.”

In previous years, Hillsdale, alongside other members of the MSCPA relied upon a Litchfield coal plant, which produced a sufficient 55 megawatts during shortages. That plant was shut down during the Obama administration due to stricter environmental policies. Without the local emergency source, AMP relied on sending energy to Hillsdale from the remote Midcontinent Independent System Operator .

“We essentially share power with Canada and Minnesota, all the way down to Arkansas and over into Texas,” Hammel said. “That’s the extent of the MISO. If there’s any issues anywhere in that zone, we could have a shortage that forces us to generate at some level.”

During natural disasters like the Texas blizzards over the past two years, external sources of power failed the City of Hillsdale. Because of this, Hammel said the city needed to purchase energy during emergencies from the umbrella organization, AMP, headquartered in Ohio. 

As extreme weather becomes more common, a self-sustained emergency source of energy is necessary to prevent high energy bills and brownouts, Hammel said.

After realizing they would not have enough power by 2025, member cities of MSCPA, including Hillsdale, decided to jointly invest in seven PowerBlock diesel generators to serve as a backup power source. The generators will provide a total 59.3 megawatts of energy to the cities of Coldwater, Clinton, Hillsdale, and Marshall.

“It’s going to make the whole grid more reliable and resilient; that’s something that the BPU in the city is really putting a lot of emphasis on,” said City of Hillsdale Marketing and Development Director Sam Fry. “It should give a little bit of peace of mind to folks in the community, knowing that we’re going to have an additional source of local generation.”

Two of these generators will be in Hillsdale.

“They will be strategically placed, not all together, allowing us some flexibility with how we generate, where we need to push the power to and from, and how they will tie together,” Hammel said. “The two new sites of PowerSecure units, along with the existing site, allow things to play together nicely.”

PowerSecure is a company focused on providing energy system upgrades to smaller regions’ microgrids, according to its website.

One Hillsdale generator will be next to the Baw Beese plant, located at the Department of Public Services. The other will be near the water tower in the Hillsdale Manufacturing and Technology Park.

“This will be a direct benefit to all those businesses in the industrial park so if we have a failure outside the city, we can still generate this power to keep them online so that they’re not losing money as a company,” said Hillsdale City Manager David Mackie.

While the old generators use natural gas, the new ones from PowerSecure will run on biofuel and function much like a Volvo semi truck engine. Each PowerBlock looks externally like a shipping container, but contains five to six engines inside. Fuel tanks are attached to each engine, allowing for a quick switch to emergency power when necessary. AMP will provide diesel delivery.

“We anticipate parts being readily available for a very long time, due to the fact that there’s thousands of these things on the road being operated in service every day,” Hammel said. “The engines are all coupled together so they can run according to demand. This helps with efficiency, rather than having one giant engine that’s just eating fuel.”

Berlin, Pennsylvania, is a town of little more than 2,000 people that has transitioned to relying solely on PowerSecure blocks for its power. Though the City of Hillsdale has no plans to fully generate its own power, it gives the BPU a roadmap moving forward, Fry said.

“I’m not too keen on the direction politics and policy is heading in Michigan and at the federal level,” Stockford said. “The more Democratic this country gets in its thinking, the more little rural areas like Hillsdale get run over by the tyranny of the majority. We recognize that.”

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