DTE Energy gave some newly trained piping designers their first look at a working piping application in a tour of the Belle River Power Plant in, China Township, MI. The tour of the power plant completed a 6 week training course at Macomb Community College for unemployed automotive designers funded by Michigan’s No Worker Left Behind program. DTE Energy serves 2.1 million electric customers in Southeast Michigan through its Detroit Edison subsidiary. 16 students and 3 instructors toured the plant. The tour was arranged by John C. Dau, Plant Manager, and lead by Lezley K. Filzek, DTE Reliability Engineer. With all its coal and natural gas fired generators running the Belle River Power Plant has a maximum capacity of 1,664 Megawatt electric (MWe) power. The design content of the class was taught by Information Assets, Inc., (IAI) of Houston, TX.
Power plants powered by coal and other fuels have piping designed to answer their unique needs, such as high temperatures, high pressures and fuels. “The Belle River Power Plant has very large piping with very thick walls to handle the water and steam used by our boilers and turbines,” said Matt Lohmeier, an Engineer at DTE Energy. “Some pipe is lined with ceramic materials to tolerate abrasive coal flow.”
DTE Engineer Matthew T Lohmeier explain specialized coal transport pipe to piping class member Dave Brooks (Photo by Lezley Filzek, DTE Energy)
The new pipers followed DTE engineers throughout the plant, asking questions and marveling at the crushers, boilers, turbines, exchangers and pumps. “It’s one thing to study this in the classroom,” said one student. “It is quite another to see it in a working plant.”
Belle River Power Plant is a major coal- and natural gas-fired power plant owned by Detroit Edison, a subsidiary of DTE Energy. First, five oil-fueled internal combustion generators (named IC1, IC2, 3, 4, and 5) were built in 1981, with the total output 13.75 megawatt. Coal-fired unit 1 of the Belle River plant was completed in 1984, followed by a similar unit 2 in 1985. Each unit has a nameplate capacity of 697.5 MWe, however the coal-fired plant as a whole generates 1260 MWe all year around. In 1999, three natural-gas fired turbines (named 12-1, 12-2, and 13-1) were added, with the total name-plate capacity of 256 MWe. (For more information, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_River_Power_Plant)
DTE Engineer Sean A McCarthy Explain steam turbine driven generators to Macomb class (Photo by Lezley Filzek, DTE Energy)
The innovative training course to retrain automotive designers for piping work was developed by Talascend, a local placement company with a large staff of designers needing to find new areas to apply their skills. They partnered with Michigan Technical Education Center (M-TECSM), the corporate training arm of Macomb Community College. MTEC arranged the funding from the State of Michigan No Worker Left Behind Program.
For more information on the MCC Piping Training, contact: Ann Spaven, Administrator – Talascend Global Training Academy, 5700 Crooks Rd. Suite 420, Troy, MI 48098, Direct: (1) 248 537 1287, Fax: (1) 248 537 1353, Ann.Spaven@talascend.com, Web: www.talascend-gta.com.
For more information on DTE Energy, consult: http://www.dteenergy.com/
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