City seeks grant for biomass project

SANDPOINT — Jeremy Grimm envisions small businesses sprouting like seedlings at this three-acre site on the north side of town.

“Hothouse tomatoes,” he said. “A laundry.”

The businesses would take advantage of a cleaner, cheaper energy source, one that the city plans to install at its Airport Way industrial park.

Grimm, Sandpoint’s planning director, applied for the second prong of a grant that would set in motion the purchase and installation of a Hurst 50 horsepower cogeneration system — a biomass burner — at the site.

The city was awarded a $250,000 grant in December for part of the work, but is waiting to hear on another $250,000 grant from the state’s Office of Energy Resources, Grimm said.

If the city receives the additional funding, it will start this spring on a $500,000 project to purchase and install the burner, and hook three city-owned buildings to the energy source.

The city shop, Lead-Lock building and the Bonner Business Center will take advantage of the new energy source, Grimm said. By using biomass the city estimates spending $6,039 annually to heat the three structures,  a savings of $11,194.

“If we’re succesful, this thing could make and sell thermal energy at a reduced cost,” Grimm said.

The idea is to grind wood waste including wood slash and logging debris from land clearing operations, and construction waste that might otherwise end up in landfills, and turn it into hog fuel, a combustible wood product that would be used to make energy.

Reid Ahlf the general manager of Post Falls-based ABC Wood Recycling, which has a storage site in Sandpoint, said his company is among regional recyclers that could potentially supply hog fuel for the city’s burner.

“We generate a significant amount of material,” Ahlf said.

Sandpoint’s proposal, he said, is for a small burner that would use a couple of tons per day.

“I could supply them in one week, with a whole year’s supply,” Ahlf said. “That size burner doesn’t use that much.”

The focus on biomass burners in the Inland Northwest was stepped up in the last decade as the federal government looked for ways to deal with the by-products of forest thinning operations. In Kellogg, the school district was awarded a grant to build a biomass burner through a Fuels For Schools program. It was one of the first burners employed by a local school district, and it came with its own set of bugs.

When the district purchased the burner several years ago, language was part of the problem with the new technology, Tim Etherton, Kellogg School District’s head facility manager said.

People didn’t know enough about biomass burners to differentiate between the specific types of fuels that various burners required.

It wasn’t clear five years ago when it was installed that the district’s burner required clean wood chips instead of ground-up wood slash from logging sites.

The ground-up slash was too dirty and caused problems with the burner, resulting in headaches that have since been overcome, Etherton said.

The Sandpoint burner won’t require a clean fuel source. Instead it will be able to burn slash and debris, which cost less than clean wood chips or pellets.

Paul Kjellander administrator of the state’s Office of Energy Resources, thinks the Sandpoint project has room for growth.

“It could be a pretty interesting project,” Kjellander said. “They can explore other issues, add new businesses and take advantage of forest biomass available in that area.

“It looks like a great starting point.”

Grimm agrees that the city’s project has potential.

In addition to reducing the cost of power at its three buildings, he hopes other businesses will jump on board and hook into the city’s biomass power grid.

Businesses such as an organic garden or aquaculture facility that could supply products for local manufacturers or grocers would be a good fit, he said.

The burner may also support a woody biomass grinding and hauling business, Grimm said.

“We have people with that skill set who are out of work,” he said.