Massachusetts Grants Millions to Biomass Industry

[Mil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars go to pol­lut­ing bio­mass incin­er­a­tion under the guise of “clean” ener­gy. ‑Ed.]

-  by Anna Simet, June 5, 2014, Bio­mass Magazine

Mass­a­chu­setts has ded­i­cat­ed $3.5 mil­lion to nine renew­able ther­mal projects in the state through a new grant pro­gram, the Mass­a­chu­setts Renew­able Ther­mal Busi­ness Invest­ment Financ­ing Program.

Funds for the pro­gram are being drawn from the state’s Alter­na­tive Com­pli­ance Pay­ment funds, which are pay­ments made by elec­tric­i­ty sup­pli­ers when they do not meet state renew­able ener­gy port­fo­lio stan­dard oblig­a­tions. Pay­ment amounts vary accord­ing to tech­nol­o­gy class and com­pli­ance year. For exam­ple, in 2014, sup­pli­ers in RPS Class I—which includes sources installed after 1997—must pay $66.16 per MWh not achieved.

 Each year, ACP funds are allo­cat­ed by the Mass­a­chu­setts Clean Ener­gy Cen­ter. Through the new pro­gram, a vari­ety of tech­nolo­gies are eli­gi­ble for fund­ing, includ­ing woody bio­mass, grass pel­lets, advanced bio­fu­els, bio­gas, solar ther­mal, and invert­er dri­ven air and ground source heat pumps.

Some of the fund­ed projects include a $1 mil­lion to Rocky Moun­tain Wood in Wilbra­ham, Mass., for devel­op­ment of a com­mu­ni­ty-scale wood pel­let man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty, over $800,000 to Maine Ener­gy Sys­tems for a new bulk pel­let dis­tri­b­u­tion facil­i­ty and pel­let boil­er show­room in Sal­is­bury, Mass., and a $75,000 grant to the Bio­mass Ther­mal Ener­gy Coun­cil for devel­op­ment of an effi­cien­cy test pro­ce­dures for com­mer­cial-sized, sol­id bio­mass boilers.