Lansing Board of Water & Light
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The Lansing Board of Water and Light is a municipal utility that provides electricity and water to the residents of the Cities of Lansing and East Lansing, Michigan and the surrounding townships of Delta, Delhi, Meridian and DeWitt.
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[edit] History
The Lansing Board of Water and Light is a municipal utility, owned by the citizens of Lansing, Michigan. The utility's roots go back to 1885, when Lansing citizens approved a $100,000 bond issue to build a water system to provide for drinking water and fire protection. Electricity was added to its list of utility services in 1892, and steam heat in 1919.
[edit] System Information
The Lansing Board of Water and light has an electric generating capacity of 510 megawatts. The LBWL's transmission line voltage is 138,000 volts. The LBWL's distribution voltages are 13,200 volts, 8320 volts and 4,160 volts.
[edit] Interconnections
The Lansing Board of Water and Light has two 138KV interconnections with Consumers Energy from its substation on Jolly Road just east of Pennsylvania Ave on Lansing's south side.
[edit] Generating Plants
The LBWL's largest power plant is the Eckert coal-fired generating station is located in downtown Lansing on the Grand River adjacent to the General Motors Corporation Grand River Assembly Plant. This plant replaced the Lansing Car Assembly plant, which was built in the early 1920's, and expanded many times over the next decades. The station has a generating capacity of 351 Megawatts of electricity, produced by burning coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin. This plant has 3 (three) smokestacks all of which are 624 feet in height, making these the tallest self supporting structures in south central Michigan. These stacks are visible from distances of 15 miles on a clear day. The stacks are also known locally by the names of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, named after the fishermen in a poem of the same name by Eugene Field.
The LBWL's other generating plant is the Erickson generating station located in Delta Township on Canal Road just south of Mt. Hope. This plant is coal fired and has a single generating unit with a capacity of 159 megawatts and is connected to the power grid by three 138KV lines.
During periods of high demand, the Lansing Board of Water and light purchases 146 megawatts of electricity from Detroit Edison's Belle River Power Plant located in St. Clair County, Michigan just south of Port Huron.
See also: Lists of public utilities
