$355,375 Grant to Install Biomass Heating in Massachusetts Elementary Schools

- Mass­a­chu­setts Exec­u­tive Office of Ener­gy and Envi­ron­men­tal Affairs, May 5, 2015, Bio­mass Magazine

The admin­is­tra­tion of Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Char­lie Bak­er and Lt. Gov. Karyn Poli­to has announced grant fund­ing for Heath Ele­men­tary School in Heath and the Hawle­mont Ele­men­tary School in Charlemont to con­vert to high­ly effi­cient bio­mass boil­ers from their exist­ing oil heat­ing sys­tems. Two grants total­ing $355,375 are the third and fourth to be award­ed for imple­men­ta­tion from the Schools and Pub­lic Hous­ing Inte­grat­ing Renew­ables and Effi­cien­cy (SAPHIRE) Program.

“We are com­mit­ted to work­ing close­ly with munic­i­pal­i­ties across the Com­mon­wealth to reduce ener­gy costs, sup­port local ener­gy projects, and strength­en local economies through ener­gy invest­ments,” Bak­er said. “This pro­gram pro­vides Mass­a­chu­setts with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to allow school build­ings to reduce costs and more effi­cient­ly man­age their ener­gy use.”

“By pro­vid­ing schools across the state with the tools nec­es­sary to reduce their reliance upon heat­ing oil, the com­mon­wealth will take a piv­otal step towards ensur­ing the fur­ther reduc­tion of green­house gas emis­sions,” said Ener­gy and Envi­ron­men­tal Affairs Sec­re­tary Matthew Beat­on. “The con­ver­sion projects in Heath and Charlemont high­light Mass­a­chu­setts’ com­mit­ment to min­i­miz­ing cli­mate change impacts, and I applaud these region­al school dis­tricts for their proac­tive approach towards an effi­cient heat­ing system.”

These invest­ments togeth­er will save at least an esti­mat­ed $30,000 annu­al­ly by using a less expen­sive and clean­er fuel source. Both school build­ings are also plan­ning to add addi­tion­al insu­la­tion and upgrade the light­ing this sum­mer with assis­tance from Nation­al Grid.

“With near­ly one-third of total ener­gy costs going toward heat­ing our build­ings, Mass­a­chu­setts school dis­tricts are search­ing for more cost-effec­tive and sus­tain­able alter­na­tives to heat­ing oil,” said Depart­ment of Ener­gy Resources Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er Dan Burgess. “Installing renew­able ener­gy heat­ing sys­tems in schools demon­strate how these tech­nolo­gies can deliv­er sig­nif­i­cant ener­gy cost sav­ings, as well as pro­vide learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and com­fort­able envi­ron­ments for students.”

The SAPHIRE Pro­gram helps Mass­a­chu­setts pub­lic schools com­bine renew­able heat­ing and cool­ing with ener­gy effi­cien­cy improve­ments to achieve deep­er cuts in their ener­gy costs. The pro­gram is admin­is­tered by the Depart­ment of Ener­gy Resources (DOER) in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Mass­a­chu­setts School Build­ings Author­i­ty. SAPHIRE offers fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies, design and engi­neer­ing stud­ies and con­struc­tion fund­ing assis­tance to K‑12 pub­lic school build­ings pur­su­ing renew­able ther­mal tech­nol­o­gy, includ­ing bio­mass heat­ing, solar ther­mal, and/or heat pumps.

“It’s great news to see the Bak­er-Poli­to admin­is­tra­tion mak­ing these impor­tant invest­ments in our west­ern Franklin Coun­ty schools,” said state Sen. Ben­jamin B. Down­ing, Sen­ate Chair­man of the Joint Com­mit­tee on Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, Util­i­ties and Ener­gy. “These projects will serve to reduce the schools envi­ron­men­tal impact and as a learn­ing device for students.”

The pro­gram is fund­ed by an allo­ca­tion of approx­i­mate­ly $1.7 mil­lion in Alter­na­tive Com­pli­ance Pay­ment funds and a $715,000 U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy grant. ACP funds are paid by elec­tric retail sup­pli­ers if they have insuf­fi­cient Renew­able or Alter­na­tive Ener­gy Cer­tifi­cates to meet their com­pli­ance oblig­a­tions under the Renew­able and Alter­na­tive Port­fo­lio Stan­dard pro­grams. The U.S. DOE grant pro­vides staffing support.