The Southtown housing complex in Ann Arbor wants to go off the grid and produced all its power on-site.
Southtown is a proposed all-electric development on South State Street, just south of University in downtown Ann Arbor.
The eight-story project is slated to include 250 new apartments, along with retail, office and community meeting space. It would include geo-thermal heating and cooling, potentially on-site solar, and fuel cells to generate all the power it needs.
Ann Arbor Sustainability and Innovations Director Missy Stults says it’s the kind of project worth supporting.
“That was one of the things that really caught my eye about this project is working with a developer that’s asking not only sustainability questions but also questions about resilience and the impacts to their tenants.”
The developers are asking to connect to gas as a primary service, so the fuel cells as part of the microgrid can produce electricity.
Ann Arbor has been moving away from gas, but the developers say they will collect it and prevent its escape into the atmosphere.
Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support. Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
