BIOMASS HUB

US Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chu announced today the selection of five projects to receive more than $20.5 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) to support deployment of community-based renewable energy projects, including biomass.

The funding is intended to go towards building out a clean energy infrastructure and help communities build long-term renewable energy solutions, save consumers money, and create jobs.

In Chu’s words:

Smaller, more localized renewable energy systems need to play a role in our comprehensive energy portfolio.  These projects will help create jobs, expand our clean energy economy, and help us cut carbon pollution at the local level.

According to EERE:

The selected projects will be leveraged with approximately $167 million in local government and private industry funding.  DOE estimates that these projects will provide enough clean, renewable energy to displace the emissions of approximately 10,700 homes.

Biomass projects receiving awards include:

• City of Montpelier (Montpelier, Vermont) — $8 million: to help Montpelier meet its energy goals by supporting installation of a 41 MMBtu combined heat and power (CHP) district energy system fueled with locally-sourced renewable and sustainably-harvested wood chips
• Forest County Potawatomi Tribe (Forest County, Wisconsin) – $2.5 million:  to implement an integrated renewable energy deployment plan that will provide heating, cooling, and electricity for the Tribe’s governmental buildings, including a 1.25 MW biomass combined heat and power facility that will provide heating, cooling, and electricity, a biogas digester and 150 kW generation facility as well as wind and solar
• University of California at Davis (Davis, California) — $2.5 million:  to build a Waste-to-Renewable Energy (WTRE) system that would generate power from a renewable biogas fed fuel cell for campus oriented mixed housing and commercial development venture

The DOE’s announcement is available here.