Albany, Georgia Biomass Project Takes Step Toward Reality

- by Dave Miller, Sep­tem­ber 4, 2014, WALB News

The Albany-­Dougher­ty Pay­roll Devel­op­ment Author­i­ty has giv­en the go-ahead for its part in the pro­posed new bio­mass gen­er­a­tor in con­junc­tion with Procter&Gamble in Albany.

We report­ed Tues­day that the PDA Ok’ed a new lease for Proc­ter and Gam­ble that could help them cut waste, and allow­ing the com­pa­ny to have anoth­er tenant.

The com­bined heat and pow­er bio­mass facil­i­ty at the Albany Proc­ter & Gam­ble Paper Prod­ucts Co. was tout­ed as a boon for the local econ­o­my by strength­en­ing exist­ing indus­tries, pro­tect­ing jobs and posi­tion­ing Albany as a pre­mier loca­tion for renew­able ener­gy projects.

The util­i­ty scale bio­mass plant would be one of the largest in Geor­gia and rep­re­sents up to $230 mil­lion of invest­ment by Albany Green Ener­gy, LLC. The poten­tial project, which is being dri­ven by Proc­ter & Gam­ble, Con­stel­la­tion New Ener­gy and Ster­ling Ener­gy Assets, would cre­ate 25 to 35 full-­-time jobs and an aver­age of 190 con­struc­tion jobs across 21 months with a peak of 575 jobs, and cre­ate near­ly $8 mil­lion in tax rev­enue over the two-decade deal. 

“Today the devel­op­ment author­i­ty has tak­en an impor­tant step toward real­iz­ing such an inno­v­a­tive, impor­tant and unique project for Proc­ter & Gam­ble and for Albany, who have a 30-­year shared his­to­ry,” said Jeff “Bod­ine” Sin­yard, chair of the Albany-­Dougher­ty Pay­roll Devel­op­ment Authority. 

“This project would strength­en the Albany facil­i­ty with­in the Proc­ter & Gam­ble struc­ture, cre­ate jobs and busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties for Albany and South­west Geor­gia, and through future col­lab­o­ra­tion, poten­tial­ly ben­e­fit Marine Corps Logis­tics Base–Albany, anoth­er key employ­er and eco­nom­ic driver.”