As Trenton power plant stacks fall, DTE gets OK for battery energy storage facility

Grosse Ile Township — On the same day demolition began on DTE Energy’s shuttered Trenton Channel Power Plant, the utility won an approval for the site’s next use as an energy storage facility.

The Michigan Public Service Commission on Friday greenlit DTE’s plans to construct a 220 megawatt/800 megawatt hour lithium iron-phosphate battery energy storage system, at a cost of up to $460 million.

The approval came hours after two brick smokestacks at the 102-year-old plant came down, symbolizing the site's shift toward a clean-energy future.

DTE acknowledged the upcoming project in a statement Friday: "DTE Energy is planning an energy storage facility at the former site of the Trenton Channel power plant. We will make an announcement with more details in the next few months, as soon as project details are finalized."

After a couple of flashes of light and the sound of thunder followed by two loud crashes, the skyline along the Detroit River in Grosse Ile and Trenton was changed forever early Friday with the razing of the towers affectionately known as the "Candy Canes.".

A couple of warning shouts, a small explosion, and the 600-foot tower to the north fell on its side, creating a large cloud of dust. Seconds later, another warning, an explosion, and its twin to the south was also on its side, making the dust cloud larger. Minutes later, the cloud dissipated to the south over the river.

"It went exactly as we expected," Michael Banks, director of Major Projects for DTE Energy, said after the twin stacks were felled with 500 pounds of dynamite each. "It was safely done. The stacks fell to the north as it was designed to do."

He estimated about a couple of hundred people came out to the area near the Grosse Ile Recreation Department's building along the river and facing the old power plant.

Grosse Ile resident Bret Lucka, 49, was among them. He brought his twin children, Avrielle and Lawson, with him to see the demolition.

"I've never seen something being demolished in real time," Lucka, who works in the energy industry but not for DTE, said after the stacks came tumbling down. He said he brought his 8-year-old kids to see it before they headed off to school.

"I thought it would be an interesting opportunity for these guys to understand that there's another type of life cycle besides that which is found in biology," he said. "Some day, they'll see something awesome like this go up, but to see the destruction of it, they can start to have a sense of the advance planning that has to take place to operate our world."

Avrielle called the experience "amazing."

"The way it fell over was amazing," the third-grader said. "I thought it would just crumble into pieces from top to bottom but instead it just fell over. That big boom got me scared for a second even though I knew it was going to happen. I thought it was really cool."

Lawson also said the demolition awed him.

"It was amazing. It was a first-time experience for me," he said. "I've seen things like this on YouTube but not in person."

He said he also thought the stacks would fall down in a different way than they did.

Banks said a Cleveland company with an office in Michigan, Independence Excavating, performed Friday's demolition.

Banks said the process used to bring the stacks down Friday is called "dynamic felling" and is the safest way to knock down these types of structures. He explained the process is similar to the way a lumberjack chops down a tree: a wedge was carved with dynamite at the bottom of the stacks. "And when the button was pushed, that bottom wedge was blown out and the stacks fell over," the director said.

He said there was a short pause between each felling to allow crews to make sure the first one was downed as planned and to minimize the impact of their demolition on neighboring communities.

Crews will begin sift through the rubble to clean up and search for any steel or concrete that's recyclable, he said. The process could take up to a couple of months.

Banks also said the remaining boiler house for the plant will be demolished sometime in May or June. The plant sits along West Jefferson Avenue, south of Grosse Ile Parkway.

DTE Energy said the Trenton Channel Power Plant operated for nearly 100 years from 1924 until it was retired in 2022.

The company planned to demolish the smokestacks last month but delayed it until Friday. Company officials in February didn't provide a reason for the delay.

Banks said the delay enabled crews to perform final checks on the demolition's design. "We were just making sure," he said. "When you push the button, there's no going back. We wanted to ensure this was going to go as it went today."

He said the demolition of the smokestacks marks the end of an era in the area.

"I've been in and around this community for a while," he said. "When you're flying out of Metro Airport, you're not going to see those candy cane smokestacks that we all looked at. That's a dynamic change.

"They've been a navigational beacon for people in this community for decades," he said. "Missing those candy cane stacks is going to be an impact on the community."

He also said their demolition is also a fundamental shift for Detroit-based DTE, which operates an electric company that serves 2.3 million customers in southeast Michigan and a natural gas company that serves 1.3 million customers across Michigan.

"It's a shift in our push from the way we generated in years gone by to future clean energy generation," he said.

cramirez@detroitnews.com

@CharlesERamirez