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Fibrowatt fights plan to delay utilities law
Companies are trying to put off mandated renewable energy
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Published: October 4, 2009
Updated: 10/04/2009 02:00 am
Construction of Fibrowatt's three planned plants, including one in Surry County, must begin by Dec. 31, 2010, so the company can take advantage of federal stimulus money for renewable-energy projects.
The plants would generate electricity by burning chicken waste.
The company outlined its timeline for building the plants in a recent filing to the N.C. Utilities Commission. It wants the utilities commission to deny a request from utilities companies to delay by one year the start of a law that requires utilities to get some energy from pig and chicken waste. The law is scheduled to go into effect in 2012.
The U.S. Department of Treasury will provide money for 30 percent of the costs of a renewable-energy project. To meet that deadline, Fibrowatt needs to obtain state air-quality permits and reach power-purchase agreements with utilities companies. Any delay would endanger the company's chances of getting stimulus money to build their plants, Fibrowatt says in the filing.
"Unfortunately, Fibrowatt's efforts to negotiate PPAs with electric suppliers have been met with approaches ranging for reluctance to indifference," the company said.
The company needs the agreements before it applies for the permits. It will take two years to build the plants.
The stimulus money "would reduce the cost of poultry-waste-fueled generation to North Carolina ratepayers," the company said. "And if this funding opportunity is lost, the electricity will cost ratepayers more than it would otherwise."
Duke Energy Corp., Progress Energy Carolinas Inc. and other utilities companies have asked the utilities commission for a one-year delay. They say that Fibrowatt wants too much money for the energy it would produce, an assertion that Fibrowatt denies.
Fibrowatt, based in Pennsylvania, is the only company that offers renewable energy generated from burning chicken waste to North Carolina's electric utilities companies. Fibrowatt and the utilities are facing deadlines.
The law requires that at least 900,000 megawatt hours of electricity sold to retail customers by 2014 must come from poultry litter. North Carolina has about 5,000 poultry farms, and poultry farming is a $3.4 billion industry.
The utilities companies also want the commission to reduce the minimum-energy requirement from poultry waste starting in 2014 by a third.
The planned Fibrowatt plant in Surry would be near a Duke Energy substation, poultry producers, Interstate 77 and N.C. 268.
In their filings to the commission, Surry County and the N.C. Farm Bureau urged the commission to deny the utilities' request for a one year delay.
Surry officials said that the planned plant would be called FibroHills and would add $140 million to the county's tax base and create about 100 jobs. Surry officials have spent more than $776,500 to buy and develop the plant site.
However, several community groups including the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League said in their filing to the commission that the proposed Fibrowatt plants would produce noxious odors, toxic emissions and increased truck traffic on rural roads and highways, decreased property values and would interfere with their health.
Some farmers, who are members of the community groups, said that the plants' toxic emissions would adversely affect their crops and property.
Terry Walmsley, a spokesman for Fibrowatt, said he respects the community groups' opinions about their planned plants, but he disagrees with them.
Fibrowatt's planned plants are in the public interest and would contribute to North Carolina's renewable-energy sources, Walmsley said.
jhinton@wsjournal.com
727-7299
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