HOLLAND, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – A grand opening celebration took place at Holland Energy Park on Monday, October 2.
Holland Board of Public Works (HBPW) members of the community and hundreds of attendees toured the natural gas plant and the Holland Energy Visitor Center. The grand opening marks the next phase in the journey to ustainable, long-term energy use for Holland. Dave Koster, General Manager of HBPW says Holland Energy Park fulfills three core functions:
1. To be a world-class resource that provides sustainable and long-term energy source and educational hub.
2. To be a destination that provides activities that connect Holland Energy Park to the community.
3. To be a gateway-enhancing eastern access into the City of Holland.
The $240-million Holland Energy Park features a 50% reduction in carbon emissions, double the fuel efficiency of Holland’s past power generation, an expansion of the snowmelt system, an interactive Visitor Center, the latest combined-cycle natural gas technology which produces up to 145 megawatts of power and walking trails around the plant with plans to connect Windmill Island Gardens to the Macatawa Greenway trail system.
Holland Energy Park recently received the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure’s (ISI) Envision Platinum award recognizing the sustainability of public infrastructure. Holland Energy Park is the first-in-the-country base load power generating plant to receive an Envision rating. The Holland Board of Public Works created the Holland Energy Park to be a reliable power resource for the Holland community that is socially, economically and environmentally responsible.
Koster says there was 26 acres that had 61 individual parcels of land on it that was mix-use.
“We had industry here, small business here and residences and we went through a very responsible fair process to acquire those parcels. We went and tried to side with the homeowner on the fair market value.Once we went through a process of clean up on the site, we had to think about the site plan, architectural design of the plant. And again we pulled together a community group to do that.”
HBPW will start accepting group tours on October 3, 2017 and self-guided tours starting this winter.
