Co-generator project gets boost from grant

A 100-kilowatt combined heat and power co-generator under construction at the Integrated Biomass campus in Wallowa will soon be completed thanks to a grant from Pacific Power and Light’s Blue Sky Funds. The $80,000 awarded this week is the final piece of funding needed for the $1.25 million project.

The initial funding of $500,000 for the co-generator came from the U.S. Department of Energy in the form of a challenge grant to Wallowa County. Wallowa Resources of Enterprise is administering the grant and raised the remaining funds.

Nils Christoffersen, Wallowa Resources director said, “The Department of Energy challenged us to raise a one-to-one match to the $500,000 grant. We have raised the final piece of funding we needed to buy all the equipment for a 4.8 million BTU gasifer.”

An additional $275,000 received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act came in July of 2010 with the requirement that the plant be completed by February 2012. The rest of the money came from private partners.

The co-generator will create heat to dry and cure both firewood and wood chips while creating electricity as a by-product, Christoffersen said.

“The construction of the kiln should be completed by Monday,” said Christoffersen. “Then they will start to build the building for the biomass gasifier that will heat the water to power the kilns.”

Christoffersen credits the success of the grant funding for the co-generator to the scale of the project. Most other biomass plants under consideration were much bigger than the 100-kilowatt facility in Wallowa.

“When we received funding from the federal government we sort of pulled together a demonstration for a small scale combined heat and power biomass facility while almost everyone else has been looking at 10-megawatt plants and bigger. With the uncertainty of long-term biomass supply, it was hard to justify a large-scale investment,” said Christoffersen.

In November, Wallowa County bought the former DR Johnson mill site outside of Wallowa and is leasing it to Integrated Biomass. The small woods company has been moving its operation the last couple months to the new site from its location in the city limits of Wallowa.

With more room to work, Integrated Biomass now has a sizeable yard where forest products will be sorted into saw logs to be sold to mills, leaving material that is made into fence posts and poles, firewood and biomass fuel wood chips that are marketed and distributed directly from the mill.

“The mix of products gives us some flexibility as the various markets change and gives us the best opportunity to prove this idea out,” said Christoffersen.