The state, through the Michigan Public Service Commission, drew $1.3 million out of its Low Income and Energy Efficiency Fund to support the wind energy research. GVSU and its research partners from the University of Michigan and Wisconsin Energy used the state funds as a match for a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The courts earlier this summer ruled that the Public Service Commission did not have legislative authority.
The state, through the Michigan Public Service Commission, drew $1.3 million out of its Low Income and Energy Efficiency Fund to support the wind energy research. GVSU and its research partners from the University of Michigan and Wisconsin Energy used the state funds as a match for a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The courts earlier this summer ruled that the Public Service Commission did not have legislative authority.
MUSKEGON — How state funding for Grand Valley State University's Lake Michigan research platform is mixed up with the loss of emergency heating assistance for low-income citizens is a Lansing mystery.
But as the wind assessment research buoy was delivered this week to the Grand Trunk dock of Andre Inc. on Muskegon Lake, university officials have learned that the funding source for a majority of the research has been eliminated by a Michigan Court of Appeals decision.
The $3.3 million effort was to build the platform, equip it with the latest wind testing technology, support three years of research and provide the buoy for other lake-related studies. The floating platform will be dedicated at a GVSU ceremony on the Muskegon Channel at …
... more [truncated due to possible copyright]MUSKEGON — How state funding for Grand Valley State University's Lake Michigan research platform is mixed up with the loss of emergency heating assistance for low-income citizens is a Lansing mystery.
But as the wind assessment research buoy was delivered this week to the Grand Trunk dock of Andre Inc. on Muskegon Lake, university officials have learned that the funding source for a majority of the research has been eliminated by a Michigan Court of Appeals decision.
The $3.3 million effort was to build the platform, equip it with the latest wind testing technology, support three years of research and provide the buoy for other lake-related studies. The floating platform will be dedicated at a GVSU ceremony on the Muskegon Channel at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Lake Michigan Field Station at 11 a.m. Oct. 7.
The state, through the Michigan Public Service Commission, drew $1.3 million out of its Low Income and Energy Efficiency Fund to support the wind energy research. GVSU and its research partners from the University of Michigan and Wisconsin Energy used the state funds as a match for a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The courts earlier this summer ruled that the Public Service Commission did not have legislative authority in the latest Michigan energy law to fund the Low Income and Energy Efficiency Fund nor grant money from it. Along with 95,000 low-income Michigan citizens receiving help from the $60 million in annual heating assistance, GVSU would lose its wind research grant, university officials said.
The state's Low Income and Energy Efficiency Fund — designed to provide emergency heating and conservation assistance for low-income citizens — has been funded through a surcharge on all Consumers Energy and DTE Energy public utility customers in the state. The Public Service Commission also used the fund to support research into new energy technologies such as offshore wind turbine developments on the Great Lakes.
“We would not be where we are at today without the state grant,” said Arn Boezaart, head of the GVSU Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center in Muskegon. “It was critical for the match to our federal grant.”
Federal money has been used to buy the platform manufactured by AXYS Technologies of British Columbia, Canada, and the laser wind analysis equipment from Catch the Wind Inc. of Virginia.
The project budget will allow the platform to be tested on the east end of Muskegon Lake and set out four miles offshore from the Nugent Sand property in Lake Michigan this fall, Boezaart said.
The platform will be taken off the lake and stored during winter when ice on Lake Michigan could damage the testing equipment, Boezaart said. As for next spring, when the platform is to be placed at mid-lake just north of a line from Muskegon to Milwaukee, GVSU and its research partners need to secure new funds for the ongoing research, he said.
In the meantime, university officials are attempting to continue the state grant funding while the Michigan Supreme Court hears the case against the Public Service Commission that was brought by an association of the largest industrial electric users in Michigan. GVSU and its research partners will seek other state or private sources of funding in the coming months, Boezaart said.
“It is our expectation that all parties who have committed funds to support this complex and important project that represents significant economic development opportunity for the state of Michigan will honor their commitments, obligations and contracts,” GVSU Counsel Thomas Butcher wrote to officials in the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.