Batteries

Powin selected as battery supplier for DTE’s Trenton Channel Energy Center in Michigan

The new project replaces DTE’s retired Trenton Channel Power Plant, a century-old coal-fired facility that retired in 2022.
Powin selected as battery supplier for DTE’s Trenton Channel Energy Center in Michigan
(The Trenton Channel Power Plant before demolition. Credit: DTE Energy.)

Energy storage provider Powin announced it would supply the 220 MW/880 MWh battery system to be located at DTE Energy’s new energy storage center in Michigan.

The new project replaces DTE’s retired Trenton Channel Power Plant, a century-old coal-fired facility.

DTE’s Trenton Channel Energy Center, expected online in 2026 if approved by regulators, would be the largest standalone battery storage project in the Great Lakes region. It also represents a step toward DTE’s goal to more than double its total energy storage capacity by 2042.

The Michigan utility said the new battery project would reduce strain on the grid, decrease the need to start and stop generation as demand fluctuates and augment DTE’s growing wind and solar resources.

Powin’s contribution includes the integrated hardware, advanced software controls and extensive service packages.

In June DTE Energy demolished the boiler house of the Trenton Channel coal-fired plant, which powered Michigan for 100 years. The coal-burning power plant was retired in 2022. Until they were demolished in March, the Trenton Channel site also featured two 600-foot tall red-and-white striped smokestacks that had long been a local landmark.

The 535 MW Trenton Channel plant was completed in 1924. At the time of its commissioning, it was the fourth major power plant Detroit Edison (now DTE Energy) put into operation and the largest project the company had undertaken. At one point, with the expansion of the coal-burning plant in 1950, the facility generated 1,060 MW of energy.

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