CMS Energy
 |
|
| Public | |
| Traded as | : CMS S&P 500 Component |
| Industry | Energy |
| Founded | 1886 |
| Headquarters | Jackson, Michigan, United States |
|
Area served
|
United States |
|
Key people
|
Patti Poppe (President), (CEO) Thomas J. Webb (Chief Financial Officer) |
| Products |
Electricity Natural gas |
| US$1.152 Billion (2014) | |
| US$477 Million (2014) | |
| Website | www.cmsenergy.com |
CMS Energy (: CMS), based in Jackson, Michigan, is an energy company that is focused principally on utility operations in Michigan. Its principal business is Consumers Energy, a public utility that provides electricity and natural gas to more than 6 million of Michigan’s 10 million residents. Its non-utility businesses are focused primarily on domestic independent power production. Consumers Energy has operated since 1886.
CMS Enterprises' primary businesses are independent power production and natural gas transmission.
CMS Energy was formed in 1987 as a holding company with its principal subsidiaries as Consumers Energy and CMS Enterprises. On October 23, 1987, CMS Energy became a publicly owned company and was listed at the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s history dates back to 1886, when William Augustine Foote and Samuel Jarvis initially approached Jackson, Michigan officials and asked them to support efforts to illuminate Jackson’s downtown with electric arc lights. They formed a company, Jackson Electric Light Works in 1888. In 1889, they built a hydro plant project at the Trowbridge Dam on the Kalamazoo River. Foote, after seeing some early success, began consolidating his small power companies and formed Commonwealth Power Company.
In 1907, Foote and Jarvis built Croton Hydro project on the Muskegon River, the first project in the world that could transmit 110,000 volts of electricity. In 1920, Foote and Jarvis offered preferred shares of their company to the public to secure sufficient financing to enter other energy and power generation sectors. Over the next decades the company built several coal-fired, natural gas, nuclear and electric facilities. In 1946, the company formed a strategic partnership with Panhandle Company to convert former natural gas fields to underground natural gas storage areas. CMS Energy’s primary subsidiary, Consumers Energy, announced Michigan's first nuclear power plant in 1961, Big Rock Point in Charlevoix, Michigan.
The company announced another nuclear plant, Palisades Nuclear Generating Station on Lake Michigan, which first produced electricity in December, 1971 to serve 400,000 people a day. CMS Energy owned the plant until 2006, when it was sold to Entergy. It then announced a gas reforming plant to furnish heat for Michigan homes in 1971. This plant was the first of its kind in North America to produce synthetic gas, converting impure liquid petroleum into pipeline-quality natural gas.
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Wikipedia