TCBN: TCLP's Biggest Customer Isn't Who You Think - And They're Changing the Way They Impact the Grid

Who is the biggest power consumer in the City of Traverse City? We bet your first five guesses are wrong.

Tucked into a business park next to Cherry Capital Airport, Century LLC looks relatively unassuming from the outside – or, at least, as unassuming as a company headquartered on a 13-acre campus can look. It certainly doesn’t scan as the type of business that could, all by itself, account for 7% of Traverse City Light & Power’s total energy output.

But according to Century President Tim Healy, Century is exactly that type of business. In fact, not only is this precision manufacturing firm TCLP’s single biggest power user, it could also burn through a whole lot more of the local utility’s output if it weren’t being cautious and deliberate about its operational rhythms.

For those who are unfamiliar, Century is a two-pronged manufacturing company that has been operating in Traverse City for decades. The company uses its precision machining and heat-treating capabilities to manufacture key components for industries like automotive, aerospace, defense, mining and energy. According to its website, Century has customers in 43 states, three Canadian provinces and 16 other countries.

Century’s global, high-demand status in the manufacturing world is due largely to its state-of-the-art heat-treating systems – specifically, a liquid molten salt bath hardening line that can fully immerse parts as long as 110 inches in some of the most rigorous heat-treating environments on Earth. That custom system is ideal for treating and hardening long and unwieldy parts that might pose challenges for other manufacturers, like helicopter rotor masts or other large aircraft parts. Submersing these kinds of components in molten salts changes the molecular structure of the metal and strengthens it, lending greater durability over time.

Now, Century is in the midst of an ambitious project to become the most conscientious power customer it can be. Rather than trying to slash its overall power usage considerably – essentially an impossibility, Healy says, given the nature of the work Century actually does – the company is trying to smooth out its consumption so that it isn’t spiking the power grid in potentially dangerous ways.

Read more of this story in this month's Traverse City Business News, The Ticker's sister publication. Along with the rest of this tale, you'll find more than 20 stories and columns packed with info about what's going on in our region.

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