LANSING - Tens of thousands of Michiganians, including residents, businesses and lawmakers in next-door Lansing, lost power during the great blackout of August 2003.

However, the lights and air conditioning remained on at Michigan State University, thanks to the school's own self-sufficient T.B. Simon Power Plant, which has been pumping out electrical power to the campus since 1965.

The plant has been upgraded over the years, and currently 60 megawatts of power are being produced by the plant's Unit 1-4 coal-fired boilers. Now, the building trades, the joint venture of Christman Co./TIC, and their subcontractors are in the process of adding Unit 5 (a turbine run by steam created by other boilers) and Unit 6 (fired by natural gas) to the facility, which will add an additional 38 megawatts of capacity to the plant.

"The campus is in a continual growth mode and we're getting close to running out of generating capacity at the existing plant," said MSU construction representative Ken Gottschalk.

The Simon plant has an inter-tie with the Consumers Energy power grid, allowing both utilities to sell and purchase power. MSU Operating Engineer First Class Gary Mell said while the tie-in with Consumers gives the campus a backup source of power, the blackout pointed out a major shortcoming in the university's power grid: MSU's system needs an outside source of power to jump start its system, should both its own grid and Consumers' grid go down.

The new equipment will allow for a "black start," in which a utility relies on its own power production capacity via a generator to re-start after a loss of power.

"If we had also gone down during the blackout, we would have had to wait for the rest of the grid to come back up," Gottschalk said. "The blackout was a real eye opener. This is a college campus, and there are important, ongoing experiments here. Losing power has a great impact on our campus. Minimizing any down time is critical."

The $39.5 million project is employing about 100 building trades workers. "My impression is that they're doing a good job for us," Mell said. "We're coordinating a lot of people in a very small area, and they're doing very well."

The Simon plant started with two coal-burning boilers in 1965, and added units in 1973 and 1992, Mell said. The new units are being added in a row to the west side of the plant in an addition that spans 13,000 square feet. The plant also creates steam to run absorption chillers to air condition campus buildings. There's plenty of additional space for future expansion, he said.

Construction began in the fall of 2004, and the new units are expected to come on line in January.

A STEAM PIPE is moved from a lay-down area in front of the T.B. Simon Power by Jerry Sample of Operating Engineers Local 324.

INSTRUMENTATION TUBING for a boiler feed pump is installed at the T.B. Simon Plant by Steve Walther of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local 333 and Power Process Piping.