Renewable Energy Making Inroads

Starting this month, Indeck Alexandria Energy Center in Alexandria will fire up its 16-megawatt biomass plant, producing enough energy for 16,000 homes, employing about 20 people and supporting 100 jobs in the forest industry.

One of eight biomass plants operating or in the application phase in NH, Indeck will help the Granite State take another step toward its goalcodified in law under the Renewable Portfolio Standardof utilities obtaining 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025. Traditional energy sources, particularly coal, produce carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas linked to global warming.

In 2006, renewable energy accounted for 9 percent of the states energy generation, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Indeck bought the Alexandria plant in 1997, but waited to start it up until we could make a business of it, says William Garth, director of economics for Indeck Energy Services Inc, the Illinois parent company of the NH operation. Garth says the rising gas prices increased power prices, and laws like NHs 2007 renewable portfolio standard increased the market for renewable energy.

Public Service of NH now produces about 300,000 megawatt hours of biomass energy annually at the Schiller Station wood-powered plant in Portsmouth, which converted from coal to wood in 2006. It buys another 300,000 megawatt hours from biomass plants in Bethlehem and Tamworth, and Garth says Indeck will also be selling its energy to PSNH.

As of last year, 2 percent of the states renewable energy came from wood, but the Indeck plant, along with a plant in the works in Berlin, will dramatically increase that capacity. Laidlaw Berlin BioPower LLC in Berlin plans to convert the former Fraser Paper pulp mill into a 66-megawatt biomass plant, and it has secured a deal to sell to PSNH. The Berlin plant is scheduled to come online by 2010.

The development of new native sources of renewable energy is essential for New Hampshires energy future, says Gary Long, president and chief operating officer of PSNH.