about the plant
Grayling Generating Station is a renewable energy generating plant that uses biomass waste – primarily bark and sawdust from local lumber mills and nonmarketable biomass from logging operations to create electricity. The plant’s electric output is sold pursuant to a long-term power purchase agreement to Consumers Energy, an electric and natural gas utility.
Grayling Generating Station supports forest health, mitigates greenhouse gases (is “carbon neutral”), conserves landfill space and creates renewable energy to support northern Michigan’s electric grid 24/7.
The facility can mix tire-derived fuel waste (shredded tires) with biomass waste and burn them together in a controlled fashion to avoid air pollution. Landfill operators use the facility’s waste ash to cap landfill waste areas and help ensure safe waste containment.
Beyond the plant’s more than 20 employees, Grayling Generating Station creates and sustains nearly 100 timber industry jobs, including foresters, loggers, truck drivers, welders, boilermakers and more.
Grayling Generating Station is part owner of the adjacent sawmill that brokers the biomass waste used at the plant.
Commercial operation began in 1992.