Category: MPPA

At the American Public Power Association (APPA) National Conference on June 11, the organization looked back on the efforts of its partners to highlight individuals and utilities who went above and beyond over the past year to serve communities and promote public power, as the APPA has worked to do since 1940.

Mark Crisson Leadership and Managerial Excellence Award 

Leadership and Managerial Excellence Award Recipient: Patrick Bowland – MPPA

Change isn’t an overnight process. It requires immense time and effort from people at all levels. Leaders act as tone-setters who enable others to collectively face challenges and accomplish goals. Each year the APPA presents the Mark Crisson Leadership and Managerial Excellence Award to acknowledge the diligent efforts of a stand-out leader at a utility, agency, or state who carried out the APPA mission. This year’s recipient is Patrick Bowland, CEO and General Manager of the Michigan Public Power Agency (MPPA). 

Patrick brought 20 years of energy market experience when he joined in 2015. His proactive leadership has equipped management and staff with the necessary tools to continue pouring into Michigan utility partnerships. Since joining the MPPA, he has launched forward-thinking strategies, positioning the MPPA to support partners’ present and future practices. Join us in congratulating Patrick for exemplifying strong leadership practices for the public power movement this year and taking strides toward safe, reliable, and cost-efficient energy.

Utility Awards

Each year the APPA recognizes utility accomplishments with two major award categories: The Reliable Public Power Provider (RP3) recognition award, and The Safety Award of Excellence. Both celebrate the commitment and high level of service each utility provided to advance and promote the use of public power. The APPA board members rank performance by Diamond, Platinum, and Gold level status.

RP3 Award

The APPA gives the RP3 recognition award to utilities that demonstrated reliability, safety, workforce development, and system improvement over the past year. The RP3 program involves an application process that reviews utility partners’ performance and operational efficiency. APPA Board members report using these criteria. Each recipient must go through a rigorous application process, through which the board reviews utility-wide operations based on extensive data and information provided by the utility. Participating members must actively adopt best practices suggested by board member representatives. Here are the Diamond, Platinum, and Gold Level Recipients: 

Diamond Level Recipients: 

• Coldwater Board of Public Utilities
• Bay City Electric Light & Power
• Grand Haven Board of Light & Power
• Lowell Light & Power
• Traverse City Light & Power
• Zeeland Board of Public Works
  
• Holland Board of Public Works

Platinum Level Recipients:

• Hillsdale Board of Public Utilities
• Lansing Board of Water & Light

Gold Level Recipients:

• The City of Marshall

Safety Award of Excellence  

The Safety Award of Excellence celebrates utilities who spent extensive time in the field using safe practices to work toward the APPA mission. Winners were split into groups based on the number of worker-hours of exposure. 

Group A: Less than 15,000 hours of exposure

• The City of Marshall- Diamond Level 

Group B: 15,000 to 29,999 hours of exposure

• Lowell Light & Power- Diamond Level
• Sebewaing Light & Water- Gold Level

Group C: 30,000 to 59,999 hours of exposure

• Coldwater Board of Public Utilities- Diamond Level
•  Hillsdale Board of Public Works- Gold Level

Group D: 60,000 to 109,999 hours of exposure

• Grand Haven Board of Light & Power- Gold Level

Group E: 100,000 to 249,999 hours of exposure

• Holland Board of Public Works- Diamond Level

Over the past year, APPA utility members have collaborated to create positive changes in power and faced industry challenges by committing to safe, sustainable practices with hundreds of thousands of hours in the field to show for it. 

 

At the core of this meeting are three key elements, Learning, Networking and Celebrating Michigan Public Power and we have the unique opportunity to invite and connect with stakeholders from within our Member Communities (i.e. key customers, influencers and governing body members).

How Members Should Think About Learning

By bringing topics to the table through engaging speakers, we provide relevant, valuable, and timely industry knowledge to our membership. They in turn can take this information back to their respective communities and incorporate it into business planning. Knowledge is power and the more we know the more value we can drive into our member communities.

Recent topics included:

• 2024 – 2024 – NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) VP and Chief Engineer, Mark Lauby spoke about how changes in the electricity industry impact electric reliability. NERC is a not-for-profit international regulatory authority whose mission is to assure the effective and efficient reduction of risks to the reliability and security of the electric grid. The electricity grid is a shared system. Decisions by one participant automatically impact others. This is a critical truth that is often misunderstood. Nobody operates independently in the electricity grid.
  
• 2024 – Bob Coward, Principal Officer with MPR Associates (boutique nuclear energy consultant) spoke about nuclear power and its role in meeting societal reliability and decarbonization objectives. Whether or not we, MPPA, or any of our Members ever own or contract for power from a nuclear power generation resource, decisions about nuclear power impact all electric grid participants. Even now, Michigan is attempting to do something that has never been done before, restart Palisades, a closed nuclear power plant. Restarting Palisades will impact the reliability of the local and regional electric grid, and will have a profound impact in meeting decarbonization goals set under Michigan’s recently passed Clean Energy Legislation. In addition, Bob talked about changing technology in the nuclear industry that could lower the size, risk and cost of these power generation resources. If the industry is successful in achieving these results, the number of renewable resources needed to meet decarbonization goals will be significantly reduced. Finally, all residents should be interested in how their tax dollars are being used to fund the restart and of course, those living near the facility should care about how this old plant can be operated safely.

 

How Members Should Think About Networking

When we get a large group of our members and their key stakeholders in one place for a day together, they can share ideas, perspectives, and questions among and between each other. After all, they are all in this game together operating similar types of businesses in different parts of the State.  Building relationships creates trust networks that enhance the value of Joint Action.

 

How Members Should Think About Celebrating Public Power in Michigan

There are 40 public power utilities in Michigan. Our member communities own and operate their electric utility. Public power, if invested in and operated professionally, creates lots of value for its community. Public Power communities are more reliable and less expensive than competing utilities. They can be a source of pride and economic value.

Often, the recognition and understanding of this value gets lost over time, if the community is not vigilant about educating and engaging the community. If this happens, it shows up in a loss of resources and investment in the utility which drives up costs and lowers reliability.

Getting together to celebrate public power reminds our community stakeholders how important it is to care for and feed this important component of their community.

Located in Calhoun County, Michigan, the Calhoun Solar Energy Center generates enough electricity to power the equivalent of 40,000 American homes. The project supported approximately 400 jobs during the construction period and will invest over $110 million in the local community through property taxes, landowner payments, and wages and benefits over the life of the project.

“We are proud to build on Invenergy’s successful track record of project development in Michigan with the Calhoun Solar Energy Center and are grateful to work alongside this community,” said Erin Kricher, Vice President, Development at Invenergy. “Calhoun Solar is another Invenergy project that will produce clean, reliable electricity, while investing in the clean energy economy right here in Michigan.”

Invenergy has entered into three separate long-term power purchase agreements (PPA) with Michigan-based energy providers for the output of the Calhoun Solar Energy Center. Consumers Energy purchased 140 megawatts, Michigan Public Power Agency purchased 50 megawatts, and Lansing Board of Water & Light purchased 10 megawatts.

“As a trusted partner focused on solving energy challenges, Invenergy is proud to support the ambitious energy goals of these Michigan energy providers with the clean and reliable energy generated from our first operational solar facility in the state,” said Rob Greskowiak, Vice President, Origination at Invenergy.

“Consumers Energy has one of the most aggressive clean energy plans in the nation, and Invenergy is helping us to deliver on those goals,” said Tim Sparks, vice president of electric supply for Consumers Energy. “We know that increasing our solar capacity is a key component to building the smarter, more reliable grid of the future, and we’re excited for the impact this partnership is going to make on the state’s renewables landscape.”

“The Calhoun Solar Energy Center is part of MPPA’s growing renewable energy portfolio that provides clean, affordable and Michigan based energy supply to the residents and businesses our Members serve throughout Michigan. We are excited to bring to commercial operation our third utility scale solar energy project in the last 4 years,” said Patrick Bowland, chief executive officer of MPPA.

“We’re thrilled to be part of this project, and continue expanding our renewable portfolio to serve our customers with clean, affordable energy,” said BWL General Manager Dick Peffley. “This addition of solar moves us closer to our clean energy goals, and reinforces our commitment to a greener region.”

About Invenergy

Invenergy drives innovation in energy. Invenergy and its affiliated companies develop, own, and operate large-scale renewable and other clean energy generation and storage facilities in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Invenergy’s home office is located in Chicago, and it has regional development offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Japan, Poland, and Scotland.

Invenergy and its affiliated companies have successfully developed more than 30,000 megawatts of projects that are in operation, construction or contracted, including wind, solar, transmission infrastructure and natural gas power generation and advanced energy storage projects. Learn about Invenergy at Invenergy.com.

On November 15, 12-5p.m. Holland BPW held their annual Holiday Light exchange event for the community to have an opportunity to recycle incandescent string lights and receive free LED string lights.

• Gave away
  • 1,200 LED string lights. (String lights were 24’ 105 ct.)
  • 1,000 A19 light bulbs
  • 500 BR bulbs
  • 500 nightlights
• Recycled 1,200 pounds of incandescent string lights.

Read more about this great event in the Holland Sentinel 

Michigan’s Public Power Utilities proudly celebrated Public Power Week, October 2-8 (the first full week of October). Public Power Week is the American Public Power Association’s annual national celebration recognizing the economic, social, and environmental contributions of our 2,000 hometown electric utilities across the nation that collectively serve 49 million Americans. Many Members opened their facilities for tours, hosted special events for family fun, and sponsored coloring contests for local students.

Andrew Boatright, General Manager of Zeeland BPW shared, “As a Public Power utility, we know it’s our duty to power our community…. By more than providing electricity. We are thrilled to encourage our young Zeelanders and support them in exploring their creativity,” said Boatright. “Pairing the coloring contest with Public Power Week helps celebrate the individuals in our community who keep us powered, while also providing education to our area students.”

“This year, we are focusing on educating the next generation of Lowell Light & Power customers on the benefits of public power,” said Lowell Light & Power General Manager Charlie West. “We are so proud to provide reliable, affordable, and sustainable power to Lowell,” said West. “We hope that young people in our community and their families acknowledge this vital service and maybe even look to the utility as a good place to work down the road.”

Watch Lowell Light & Power discuss their Public Power Week celebration 

Watch Grand Haven Light & Power discuss their Public Power Week celebration