Story

The Covert generating plant in southwestern Michigan is a 1,170-megawatt power facility. The Covert facility is a combined cycle, gas-fired plant, producing enough electricity to power roughly 1 million homes. The plant site is located in Covert Township, about 48 miles west of Kalamazoo, Michigan. As a "merchant" plant, the Covert plant is intended to sell its output primarily in the competitive wholesale markets via the Michigan Electric Transmission Company lines, a subsidiary of Consumers Energy. The Covert development team selected The Shaw Group Inc. and its subsidiary, Stone & Webster, as the primary contractor for the project. Driesenga & Associates (D&A) provided full time construction layout services, establishing horizontal and vertical locations for foundations, column lines, anchor bolts, and embedment for the power plant structure. D&A also performed full time material testing of auger-cast piles, soil, grout, and concrete for the $500 million power plant.