Detroit Edison was incorporated in 1903 and built the Delray Plant to provide electricity and the Willis Avenue Plant to pioneer district steam heating.
Delray Electric Plant 1
Detroit Edison was on the leading edge of providing district steam heating, but it was on the following edge for providing electricity because in 1903 ComEd built the Fisk Power Plant using steam turbines instead of reciprocating steam engines. This photo must have been at the pinnacle of using steam engines for electricity production.
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| Detroit Historical Society posted On January 20, 1903, the Detroit Edison Company, now part of DTE Energy, was incorporated. Pictured here is the Engine and Dynamo Room of a Detroit power plant in 1903. Two rows of belt-driven dynamos (left) are being powered by a single row of steam engines (right). William H. Grunow: Henry Ford worked for Detroit Edison as a young man. |
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| dteenergy Delray 2 Power Plant was built in 1908. I wonder if it used engines or turbines. |
There is still an industrial building at the Delray site. I wonder what it did and what it does.
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| Street View, Aug 2024 |
Willis Avenue Steam Plant
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| asme ASME uses the Willis Avenue plant as an example of an early SU district heating plant. "The concept of heating a number of buildings in the core area of a city from a single heating plant was introduced into the United States by Birdsill Holly at Lockport, New York, in 1877. The gain in thermal efficiency of a single large steam plant over a series of small, isolated boilers led to widespread commercial installation of district heating. Organized by the Detroit Edison Company, the Central Heating Company began service here in 1903, supplying twelve customers with steam piped from the Edison Company's Willis Avenue Plant. Today's greatly enlarged system continues in operation. The Beacon Street plant, commissioned in 1926, is representative of most district heating plants." |
Because it is important that steam district plants be close to the buildings that they are heating, they survive into the 21st Century.
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| Street View, Sep 2023 |
I presume the steam generating plants use natural gas today. But I wondered which railroad supplied coal to the Willis Ave. Plant in 1903. I could not find any tracks near the plant. In fact, I could not find the plant.
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| 1918 Detroit Quad @ 62,500 |
I thought about counting blocks along Woodward Ave. from Adams Ave because that half circle is obvious on the topo maps. But then I remembered that the topo map viewer allows me to control the percentage of two maps that are bled together. It is a testament to the accuracy of the USGS surveyors that the contemporary street names almost land on the 1918 streets. This makes it easy to spot where the building should have been marked. I still don't understand how the plant got its coal. Did it use manufactured gas in 1903?
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| 1/3 1918 Detroit Quad @ 62,500 and 2/3 contemporary maps. |
The steam plants are now owned by Detroit Thermal, and this is their service area.
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| DetroitThermal |
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