TRAVERSE CITY — Switching on backup generators at Traverse City water and sewer plants could help during power grid emergencies – and earn the city some cash.
City commissioners on Monday will consider a six-year contract with Voltus, a company that pays power consumers to curb their use or switch to other electricity sources when power demand threatens to outstrip supply.
Traverse City Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant and the city’s drinking water treatment plant both could switch to emergency generators for up to four hours, according to the contract under consideration.
That would happen if regional grid operator Midcontinent Independent System Operator anticipates high demand. The city wouldn’t be asked to use the generators more than 16 times a year — five each in winter and summer, three each in spring and fall.
The agreement would position the city as “the last line of defense to prevent rolling blackouts during emergencies,” City Municipal Utilities Director Art Krueger noted.
Grid operators sometimes ask users to lighten their power loads during times of high use, power plant outages, storms or drops in renewable energy production, according to Voltus.
Cherryland Electric Cooperative on Jan. 24 relayed such a request from MISO in the face of a massive winter storm spanning much of the grid operator’s territory.
Asking big energy users to curb or redirect energy use in such instances — known as demand response — curbs reliance on peaking plants, which run as needed to meet excessive demand, according to Voltus. Demand response, also can avoid widespread blackouts.
For the city’s part in demand response, Voltus would pay up to $57,500 per year, depending on how much power demand the water and sewer plants’ generators offset, and the time of year they do — summertime dispatches would pay the highest rate.
That money would be evenly split between the city’s water and sewer funds, Krueger wrote.