PLC Logger's Voice Winter 2017

Tumultuous year for Biomass ends with hope
2016 has been a pivotal year for Maine’s embattled
biomass industry, during which the PLC and its Members
and Supporting Members led the way in the fight to
stabilize the industry to buy time for efforts that can
strengthen it in the future.
One year ago, the industry was in free fall,
hammered by a mild winter, cheap natural gas, and a
tighter renewable energy standard that took effect Jan. 1 in
Massachusetts. Those pressures hurt all Maine biomasselectric
producers, and resulted in the shutdown of the two
Covanta Energy plants in Maine.
The effects on loggers and sawmills were
immediate and severe: Combined with the drop in demand
for pulp brought on by pulp and paper mill closures, the
biomass situation created a revenue crisis for loggers and
sawmills, and a forest management crisis for loggers and
foresters who needed those markets to properly harvest
trees of all kinds to create healthy forests.
As the biomass market began to weaken, the PLC
rallied lawmakers, Members, and Supporting Members
including ReEnergy Holdings with its four standalone
biomass plants in Maine to lead an effort in the Legislature
and in the public eye to save the industry. For months, the
group worked at every level to win support. In the end, that
support was bipartisan, and the biomass market got shortterm
incentivized contracts to stabilize the industry as well
as the first state-level effort to examine the opportunities
for the market and come up with a plan to capitalize on
them to ensure the industry stays strong in the future.
One year later, the industry remains challenged,
but there is hope.
On Dec. 13, the Maine Public Utilities Commission
(MPUC) voted to split $13.4 million in incentives between
ReEnergy Holdings and Stored Solar - a subsidiary of
French energy firm Capergy - for two-year biomass-electric
contracts. The contracts will benefit ReEnergy's Ashland
and Fort Fairfield plants as well as the former
Covanta biomass plants in West Enfield and Jonesboro
that were purchased by Stored Solar in October after being
shut down for months. Stored Solar has applied for federal
permission to restart both plants and sell electricity to the
regional grid again.
At the same time, The Commission to Study the
Economic, Environmental and Energy Benefits of the
Maine Biomass Industry that was established by Maine
lawmakers to conduct the first in-depth assessment of
biomass opportunities for Maine has been hard at work for
months. In late December, the commission submitted a
series of recommendations to the Legislature in a draft
report.
Some of the recommendations urged by PLC and
industry partners included:
Biomass continued page 15
14 Professional Logging Contractors of Maine Loggers Serving Loggers Since 1995