The Ludington Pumped Storage Plant is a

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

plant and

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

Ludington, Michigan Ludington ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat and the largest city in Mason County, Michigan, Mason County. The population was 7,655 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the fourth largest city i ...

. It was built between 1969 and 1973 at a cost of $315 million and is owned jointly by

Consumers Energy Consumers Energy is an investor owned utility that provides natural gas and electricity to 6.7 million of Michigan's 10 million residents. It serves customers in all 68 of the state's Lower Peninsula counties. It is the primary subsidiary of C ...

and

DTE Energy DTE Energy (formerly Detroit Edison until 1996) is a Detroit-based diversified energy company involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services in the United States and Canada. Its operating units include an ele ...

and operated by Consumers Energy. At the time of its construction, it was the largest pumped storage hydroelectric facility in the world.

Characteristics

It consists of a reservoir deep, long, and wide which holds or 82859

acre-feet The acre-foot is a non- SI unit of volume equal to about commonly used in the United States in reference to large-scale water resources, such as reservoirs, aqueducts, canals, sewer flow capacity, irrigation water, and river flows. An acre- ...

of water. The reservoir is located on the banks of

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and depth () after Lake Superior and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the ...

. Because impervious bedrock is more than below the reservoir, the builders had to line the reservoir with a layer of asphalt and clay to prevent water seeping into the ground. The power plant consists of six reversible turbines for a total output of 2,292 megawatts. Water is delivered from the upper reservoir to the turbines by six

penstock A penstock is a sluice or gate or intake structure that controls water flow, or an enclosed pipe that delivers water to hydro turbines and sewerage systems. The term is of Scots origin, and was inherited from the earlier technology of mill pond ...

s each long that taper from in diameter. At night, during low demand for electricity, the turbines run in reverse to pump water uphill from Lake Michigan into the reservoir. The plant takes advantage of the natural steep

sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

landform of eastern Lake Michigan. During periods of peak demand water is released to generate power. Electrical generation can begin within two minutes with peak electric output of 2,292 MW achieved in under 30 minutes. Maximum water flow is over per minute. This process was designed to level the load of nearby nuclear power plants on the grid. It also replaces the need to build natural gas peak power plants used only during high demand. The Ludington Pumped Storage plant is connected to six 345-kV Transmission lines, all owned and maintained by METC, a subsidiary of ITC Holdings. The project was given the 1973 award for "Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement" by the

American Society of Civil Engineers The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is a tax-exempt professional body founded in 1852 to represent members of the civil engineering profession worldwide. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, it is the oldest national engineering soci ...

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Consumers Energy discussed plans in 2008 to extend the life of the facility and upgrade the pumps to increase efficiency by up to 9%. Consumers Energy also planned to tap the

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

resources along the eastern Lake Michigan shore with

wind farm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...

s. Because wind is an

intermittent power source Variable renewable energy (VRE) or intermittent renewable energy sources (IRES) are renewable energy sources that are not dispatchable due to their fluctuating nature, such as wind power and solar power, as opposed to controllable renewable ener ...

and may inconveniently deliver large amounts of power during periods of low electric demand, pumped storage facilities are desirable to have on the same grid with large-scale wind farms. The available pumped storage capacity, along with the wind characteristics, partly determine the maximum contribution wind power can make to the overall electricity use in a region. Consumers Energy and Detroit Edison announced an $800 million upgrade on February 7, 2011. The six-year project would begin in 2013 and extend the plant's life by at least forty years and upgrade the generating capacity from 1,872 megawatts to 2,172 megawatts. Plans for the upgrade include replacing all six of the plant's turbines, which would increase the plant's total generating capacity by 15 percent, and efficiency by 5 percent. Upon completion, the plant will produce enough power for a community of 1.65 million (a quarter million increase). As of August 2020, five of the six turbines had been successfully replaced; the project was expected to be completed in May or June 2021. However claims of defective parts and timeline overruns led Consumers Power and Detroit Edison to sue the project contractor, Toshiba America in April 2022.

References

External links

Ludington Pumped Storage Plant (Official Site)satellite photo and description on NASA Earth Observatory
{{authority control Dams in Michigan Energy infrastructure completed in 1973 Hydroelectric power plants in Michigan Buildings and structures in Mason County, Michigan Pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations in the United States DTE Energy CMS Energy Reservoirs in Michigan Bodies of water of Mason County, Michigan 1973 establishments in Michigan

Characteristics

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See also

References

External links