After announcing $1.3 billion Marcellus/Utica midstream purchase, DTE says it will replace coal with 1 Gigawatt of NatGas Capacity
Michigan’s DTE Energy (ticker: DTE) is making good on its dive into natural gas.
Last Monday the company announced a $1.3 billion gas infrastructure buy in the Marcellus and Utica, followed Wednesday with the announcement of an equity offering to pay for the assets. The equity units were priced Thursday to generate between $582 million and $655 million, depending on whether the over-allotment is fully sold.
On Thursday the company then announced it would replace 1 GW of retiring coal generation with new natural gas power plants by 2023.
In its press release DTE said the new state-of-the-art natural gas turbine plants can provide approximately 1,000 megawatts of energy—enough to power 850,000 homes, and create new jobs for Michigan residents. The company said it will invest $1-1.5 billion in these new generating assets which it targets to go into service between 2021 and 2023. DTE made acquisitions last year of 1,082 MW of natural gas generating capacity in Michigan.
“These new energy generation investments will significantly reduce greenhouses gases by moving to cleaner technologies,” DTE Chairman and CEO Gerry Anderson said in a statement.
Renewable energy production now accounts for 10 percent of the company’s total generation, the company said. DTE’s renewable generating resources provide enough clean energy to power more than 400,000 Michigan homes. In May, DTE Energy began construction on one of the largest solar arrays east of the Mississippi River in Lapeer, Michigan, and it recently broke ground on a solar array in Detroit.
DTE said it has cut emissions in half during the past decade, and it will further reduce emissions as it transitions to wind, solar and natural gas.
