NILES — Progressive Drive in Niles’ industrial park is about to become a site of progress. At 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 4, Indeck Energy Services, Inc. will break ground on a natural gas plant that is 20 years in the making and is expected to cost $1 billion to construct.

The Indeck Niles Energy Center is projected to produce 1.085 gigawatts of power at its 2100 Progressive Drive location, good for 700,000 homes and businesses on average. Estimates place the natural gas plant among the 100 largest in the world.

The plant is also expected to create 500 temporary union construction jobs and 21 full-time jobs after the projected 210,000-square-foot center is set to begin running in March 2022.

According to Indeck’s website, the construction jobs will be “high-paying,” and the full-time positions will be “highly skilled and high-paying technical jobs.”

The jobs will be contracted by Kiewit Corporation, which is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, but has locations across the U.S., including Chicago and Detroit.

“We’re really proud and honored to work with the city of Niles, and I think this is really a testament to the perseverance and persistence of both the city of Niles and Indeck,” said David Hicks, the company’s vice president of business development.

He said that he was proud that Indeck and the city did not give up in trying to make a proposed power plant a success story.

The company had approached the city of Niles in 2000, but nothing came to fruition due to energy company Enron Corporation’s bankruptcy and spikes in natural gas prices.

Hicks said Wednesday’s celebration will be about moving forward.

Representatives from Indeck Energy, KOSPO, General Electric and Kiewit will speak. So will U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, Niles Mayor Nick Shelton, former Michigan State Sen. John Proos, former Niles Mayor Mike McCauslin and Korean Consul General Young Sok Kim.

In the days following, Kiewit will finish preliminary and civil work that has already begun. Then, it will bring in gas turbines, heat turbines, generators and other heavy equipment and install it.

Then come tests.

“They test everything on site to make sure, one, it’s being operated safely; two, its being operated efficiently; and three, it meets all the environmental requirements,” Hicks said “Once it tests through all of that, then we put it into service.”

By March 2022, Hicks hopes that the power plant will be ready to operate.

While the plant will be developed by Indeck Energy Services, which is based in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, the company will only own 20 percent of the center. South Korea-based engineering, construction and petrochemical company Daelim Energy will own 30 percent. South Korea-based power plant company KOSPO will own 50 percent.

KOSPO provides nearly all the electricity of South Korea. It has other international energy projects in Chile and Jordan.

“Indeck, KOSCO and Daelim, we’re just really proud to bring this state-of-the-art project to the people of the city of Niles and southwest Michigan,” Hicks said.

The energy produced will be sold to the national grid. While Niles residents will not see a change in utility costs, they could see improvements in city government projects and Niles Community Schools. Tax dollars will be directed toward each in taxes from the center over 27 years.

Niles was chosen as a site because it had existing natural gas transmission lines, could be a hub in the Midwest natural gas distribution network and minimized traffic congestion with its industrial park location, according to Indeck Niles Energy Center’s website.

The center’s plant will use a combined cycle system, which uses both a gas and steam turbine to produce more electricity from the same amount of fuel that a single cycle system produces. General Electric will supply the turbines.

The plant is expected to produce 50 to 90 percent fewer emissions than a typical coal-fired plant, according to Indeck Niles Energy Center’s website.

The Niles Daily Star is collecting questions about the plant and its owners from area residents.

Questions can be submitted on the Leader Publications website or its social media pages. They can also be directed to Beau Brockett Jr. through email at beau.brockett@leaderpub.com or by phone at (269) 687-7720.