The new, onsite renewable energy facility uses wood residue, typically viewed as a waste by-product, into steam used in the plant’s paper-making process. This biomass facility (built, owned, and operated under a multi-year energy supply agreement with Richmond, Virginia-based Intrinergy), will provide a clean, steady, and cost-effective supply of energy to the paper plant over the next 15 years.
With rising fossil fuel costs and concerns about global climate change, an increasing number of industrial facilities are turning to clean, renewable sources like biomass, wind, and solar to meet their energy needs. Biomass-based renewable energy systems are proving to be a viable solution for many industries.

Biomass – a collective term for materials of recent biological origin such as wood residues, crops, agricultural wastes, and organic industrial by-products – distinguishes itself from other renewable energy alternatives by providing a reliable and flexible source of energy on an as-needed basis. For example, unlike wind and solar-based energy systems that are impaired by uncontrollable and unpredictable changes in weather and nightfall, biomass-based energy is available at any time, can be scaled in real-time to meet variations in demand, and often allows for high-efficiency cogeneration of both heat and electrical power, also known as combined heat and power (CHP). Across the United States in 2007, renewable biomass facilities running on wood residue generated over 10 million MWh of electrical power (US Department of Energy EIA Annual Energy Review 2007).
Economic viability of biomass-based renewable energy systems is increasingly more attractive as dependency on foreign oil, and today’s unpredictable global economy, have left industrial manufacturers at the mercy of a volatile energy market. Once perceived as too costly, biomass systems have become an economical solution courtesy of advances in technology, improvements in management of biomass supply chains, tax incentives, and emerging markets for carbon offsets and renewable energy certificates (REC) generated by such clean-energy operations.  

Environmental benefits of biomass-based renewable energy systems are well-documented and recognized by leading authorities on greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an administrative arm of the Kyoto Protocol, allows operators of biomass facilities in developing countries to monetize environmental benefits of switching from fossil fuels to biomass by issuing carbon offsets to biomass project developers. In the US, emerging voluntary carbon markets have created a similar funding mechanism that provides incremental revenue for operators of domestic biomass energy facilities. Moreover, advanced technologies, such as the biomass process used in Wiggins, deliver improved efficiencies with cleaner results.

To satisfy a demand for clean, low-cost, onsite power generation without incurring technological, financial, and operational risks of owning and operating a power plant in-house, heavy industrial users of steam or electricity are contracting with independent energy utilities, like Intrinergy, to deliver a fully-outsourced, long-term solution.

Yet another example of the growing popularity of biomass-based energy, Ohio paper company Smart Paper Holdings LLC is building a cogeneration facility that will use biomass for its power-generation needs when it opens in 2009. Even major utilities, spurred by rising costs of oil and gas, are beginning to show an interest in energy from biomass. Owners of a wood-fired biomass energy plant Regency Holdings Inc., for example, plan to sell the electricity that this facility produces to two Arizona electricity utilities. Running on forest thinnings and by-products from a nearby paper mill, the plant will generate enough electricity to supply 9,000 customers.
Projects and partnerships such as these, which address obstacles facing biomass-based cogeneration, are occurring with more frequency. In the case of Intrinergy, company executives recognized early on that many industrial clients want help with a wide range of project considerations that exist in setting up a renewable biomass facility, including everything from financing to sourcing biomass feedstock. By designing, permitting, building, financing, operating, and maintaining facilities that deliver steam or electricity to its industrial customers, under long-term purchase agreements, Intrinergy assumes financial, technical, and operational risks and responsibilities on its clients’ behalf. This allows clients to focus on their core operations without additional overhead that relates to managing an onsite renewable energy facility.

Fully owned and operated by Intrinergy, Wiggins Mississippi’s biomass facility delivers up to 50,000 pounds of steam per hour and is expected to reduce the paper plant’s energy costs by up to 40%. Converting biomass to renewable energy also reduces the volume of industrial by-products that are disposed in landfills, which is a further source of cost-savings and environmental stewardship. In total, this facility will reduce the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels by 20,000 tons per year, equivalent to annual emissions of 3,600 cars or electricity used by 2,600 homes. Such economical and environmental savings allow paper mills to remain competitive without downsizing core operations, to endure global economic downturns and volatile fossil fuel prices more effectively, and to remain at the forefront of environmentally sound practices.

Writers Thomas Meth and Brandon Ogilvie are Intrinergy’s executive vice president and business development manager, respectively. Intrinergy operates biomass facilities co-located on clients’ industrial sites, and is projected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels by more than 200,000 tons per year by the end of 2009.

Intrinergy
www.intrinergy.com