POWERING NILES Indeck brings new energy to community

Indeck brings new energy to Niles

Story by Debra Haight Photos by Emily Sobecki

The $1 billion Indeck Niles Energy Center currently under construction in the Niles Industrial Park is a project that has been 20 years in the making.

Indeck officials first came to the city of Niles in 2000, and have worked the project for two decades.

Construction on the new plant has remained steady over the months since the early September 2019 groundbreaking ceremony, despite the shutdown of other construction projects the last few months during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new plant is expected to be up and running in the summer of 2022.

Niles City Administrator Ric Huff reported that work has never stopped as the state considered the project to be essential.

“Indeck is considered critical infrastructure and essential services,” he said. “Therefore, they were never shut down due to COVID-19.”

Contractors have around 200 people working on the site and as many as 500 people in total are expected to be working there during the construction phase. Once it is in operation, the plant will employ 21 people. It will be a 1,085-megawatt combined-cycle plant and generate enough energy to power 700,000 homes and businesses.

Indeck Energy Vice-President of Business Development David Hicks said his company never gave up on the Niles project over the decades. The main reason for Indeck’s optimism was simple: the site in the north end of the Niles Industrial Park is well-situated with its proximity to infrastructure.

“The Niles site is an excellent site,” Hicks said. “It’s an industrially zoned site and away from residential areas. It is also near gas and power line infrastructure as well as having a rail line running nearby.

“We never gave up on it. We always assumed that it would be a good site for a power plant,” he added. “We thought eventually the market would come back to us and it has. This was a project that made sense.”

Hicks noted that he is not concerned about the current volatility in the energy market. “What’s going on with prices today is not relevant to us now,” he said. “This plan is not going to come online until the summer of 2022. I think prices will recover, and the economy will come back.”

In addition, he believes the Indeck Niles Energy Center opens the door for more opportunities in the Michiana area.

“We’re always exploring new opportunities to partner with the City of Niles,” he said. “I think this is the first of several power projects we can do in the greater Niles area.”

Hicks envisions possible future projects in not only the City of Niles but also other parts of Berrien and Cass counties in Michigan as well as even in St. Joseph County, Indiana.

“We hope to broaden what is already an excellent relationship,” he said. “There is the potential to utilize some unused land in the industrial park and elsewhere.”

The Niles project also has cemented the