Solid Fuel Biomass Power Project Development in the U.S. Sitting at $1.4 Billion

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Next to hydroelectric power, more electricity is generated from solid fuel biomass than any other renewable energy resource in the U.S. According to Industrialinfo.com’s Installed Base Database, there is currently about 9,900 megawatts (MW) of installed solid fuel biomass capacity. Solid fuel biomass includes agricultural crop waste, wood, black liquor, and 2,500 MW of municipal solid waste. The existing U.S. biomass power industry is primarily located in the Northeast, Southeast, and West Coast regions, representing a $15 billion investment and 66,000 jobs.

At this point, there are 28 solid fuel projects under development, totaling 900 megawatts and $1.4 billion in investment. Four projects of these projects are currently under construction totaling $220 million in investment. Of these four, all are moving forward due to state mandates and Renewable Portfolio Requirements (RPS). Three of these projects are located in Minnesota as part of Minnesota’s 1994 mandate requiring Xcel Energy to purchase 125 megawatts of biomass energy in exchange for storing additional nuclear waste.

Click on the image at right to view a map showing these projects.

The single largest biomass project under construction in the U.S. is a result of this mandate. Fibrominn’s 50 megawatt project in Benson, Minnesota is estimated to cost $200 million and will process 700,000 tons per year of poultry Litter.

As part of the Minnesota Mandate, Hibbing Public Utilities and the City of Virginia Department of Public Utilities are adding biomass-fired grate boilers to existing steam headers, repowering steam turbine generators to produce 20 and 15 megawatts, respectively. Foster Wheeler was awarded the contract earlier this month to supply boilers each rated at 135,000 pounds per hour of steam capacity. Demolition work is currently underway at both sites to make way for the new boilers and both projects are expected to reach commercial startup in 2007.

The fourth project is the Public Service Company of New Hampshire’s Northern Wood Power Project (NWPP) located the Schiller Power Station in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The project will replace an existing coal-fired boiler with a wood fired fluidized bed boiler to repower an existing 50 megawatt steam turbine and will burn whole-tree wood chips and other clean low-grade wood materials to generate electricity and sell Renewable Energy Credits into the Connecticut and Massachusetts REC markets. The material handling portion should be ready for testing by the end of the year with commercial startup expected by the summer of 2006. The total investment in the project is expected to reach $75 million.

The NWPP project is one of several biomass projects under development in the New England area vying for REC sales in New England’s Renewable Energy Credit Markets. Markets that remain uncertain in the near-term given the wake of recent REC price decreases in Connecticut coming from two existing biomass plants selling RECs into the market via recently installed emission equipment upgrades to meet Connecticut’s .075 pounds per million British thermal unit (lbs/mmBtu) NOx emissions requirement. And the possibility that Massachusetts may change its definition of "low-emission, advanced biomass power conversion technology" eligibility requirements that may allow existing biomass facilities to retrofit their boilers to qualify for REC sales in Massachusetts’s lucrative REC market.

In total there are seven New England Biomass Power projects under development totaling 210 MW and $400 Million in total investment value.

In the West, the Western Governors Association (WGA) has assembled a Biomass Task Force focused on the use of biomass resources for the production of electricity as part of an overall effort to increase the contribution of clean and renewable energy in the region. In a draft report produced in September, the task force suggests the potential supply of biomass feed stocks in the region could support 11,000 megawatts of biomass energy production, approximately one third of WGA’s goal to develop 30,000 megawatts of clean energy in the West by 2015. Mentioned in the report, one of the key policy recommendations to overcome expenses that the energy market is not willing to bear will be the implementation of a regional renewable energy credit tracking system called WREGIS (Western Renewable Energy Generation Information System).

WREGIS will be an accounting system that tracks renewable energy generation, creates RECs, and accounts for transactions involving RECs in the geographic region covered by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC).

At this point there are seven projects in the U.S. WECC region under development totaling 400 megawatts. One example is the 20 megawatt Snowflake White Mountain Biomass project in Arizona, which has signed a PPA with the Salt River Project which is voluntarily expanding its renewable energy portfolio. They are relocating a fluidized bed boiler from a Texas pulp and paper mill and expect to start construction by January 2006 and be completed no later than December 2007. Total investment value is estimated to be $15 million.

While the biomass projects in the near term will utilize fluidized bed and or advanced stoker designs, there are a few gasification projects in the advanced stages of development.

The largest of these are proposed by Envirepel Energy and Biomass Investment Group, which plans to develop a nominal 40 megawatt project utilizing gasification in Fallbrook, California.

The first closed loop IGCC project appears to be one step closer to fruition. Biomass Investment Group’s 120 megawatt E-grass project, which is located in Clewiston, Florida, claims to have technology in place for the gasifier, but permitting has not begun at this time.

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