Stored Solar seeks sustainability in biomass byproducts
by Sarah Craighead Dedmon
The price of natural gas hit a 17-year low last year, and projections show supplies will only increase, which could drive prices even lower. This is good news if you’re a natural gas consumer, but challenging news if you’re running a biomass energy plant.
“We pay $40 per megawatt hour just for fuel [wood], and the average price….is probably in the $30s,” said Bill Harrington, director of U.S. operations for Capergy, the parent company of Stored Solar LLC. “In today’s world, with low natural gas prices, biomass plants are not self-sustainable standing alone.”
More than 20 community members attended a Stored Solar presentation on Nov. 20 in Jonesboro, where the company’s Downeast plant is located. Harrington said that biomass plants, which create electricity by burning wood chips, will have to adapt if they’re going to survive. Stored Solar LLC acquired the Jonesboro plant and another in West Enfield in October 2016.
Engineer Nick Massad explained Stored Solar’s proposal to build a “biohub ecosystem” in which companies called “cohosts” could utilize the waste products of the Jonesboro plant. By selling utilities to these companies, Stored Solar hopes to make both plants profitable. A partner company called Born Global is handling cohost recruitment.
“We have heat, we have ash, and we have CO2. Those are the three things coming out of the power plant [that are]not making any money because it’s wasted,” said Massad.
Ideal cohost partners could be anything ranging from organic livestock or vegetable farms to scientific laboratories. Stored Solar is also working with scientists at the University of Maine to explore possible applications for the ash that comes from the plant. They plan to explore capturing the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from the towers for sale to the beverage industry, which uses it in the carbonation process.
One of Stored Solar’s pilot projects is an aquaculture shrimp farm, which will be located at its West Enfield location. “It will take the heat of the cooling towers and use it to heat the tanks of the shrimp,” said Massad.
Stored Solar was recently awarded a $500,000 loan guaranteed by the Maine Rural Development Association (MRDA) to begin construction on the farm. The terms of the loan stipulate that Stored Solar must be investing a sum equal or greater than the loan.
Though Stored Solar will operate the farm as a proof-of-concept project for potential cohost companies, Capergy CEO and owner Fahim Samaha stressed that he does not plan to invest in cohosts directly. “We provide utilities, that’s all,” he said. “Renewable heat and renewable electricity — not coming from coal, not coming from gas, not coming from any very polluted source of generating power.”
Harrington said Stored Solar sells the electricity it produces to the “grid” operated by New England ISO for roughly three cents per kilowatt-hour. Customers in Emera’s Bangor Hydro District currently pay roughly 11 cents per kilowatt-hour, though rates vary. The difference equals markup for electricity distribution.
Samaha said that selling utilities directly to cohosts could be a win-win situation. “I sell it at twice the price, they’re buying it at one-third of the price. Everybody’s happy,” he said.
Farmer Aaron Bell of Tide Mill Organic Farm in Trescott said he could see the value in Stored Solar’s proposal. “I spend a lot of money in the winter heating my chickens, and $1,500 a month on my walk-in freezers,” said Bell. “If I can get [electricity] for a third of a price, I’m going to consider that.” Bell said that his farm also benefits as a supplier to Stored Solar, selling them wood chips when the plant is active.
Other reactions to the proposal were mixed. Nancy Oden said she does not believe that burning wood for electricity is fundamentally sustainable. “Capergy should put up a solar farm, and that wouldn’t burn up the woods,” she said. “People don’t put [biomass energy] together with the fate of the Maine woods. We need the woods to help us survive what’s coming with climate change.”
Oden also questioned the status of Stored Solar’s local tax payments.
According to Jonesboro tax collector Wendy Schoppee, Stored Solar is up-to-date on taxing real property such as land and buildings, but not on personal property such as machinery and other business assets.
The town assessed Stored Solar $9,812 for the real estate it owned as of April 1, 2016. The personal property, which is still under Stored Solar’s former name, Covanta, was valued at $88,204 in 2016. Schoppee says the company has not paid that part of its tax bill.
Harrington said that the rate of personal property taxation in Jonesboro is seven times the rate in West Enfield, so they are consulting an attorney.
Working with Born Global, Stored Solar hopes to recruit cohosts to the Jonesboro location within two years. In the meantime, the company will receive part of a $13.4 million state subsidy that Harrington said it will use to “onramp” until cohosts can be located. “We’re here, and we work very hard,” he said. “I am constantly marketing Maine.
Patrick Whitney said he found Stored Solar’s ideas interesting. “We’ve watched the steam roll out of the coolers over there day after day, and you’re talking about taking and using that steam to do something with it,” he said. “I don’t see how that can be a bad thing.”
This article was written with the assistance of Nancy Beal.