ELKIN
Fibrowatt's announcement yesterday that it will build a $140 million power plant near Elkin marks the single largest investment by any company in the history of Surry County, officials said.
The company generates electricity by burning chicken litter and is expected to bring 80 or more jobs and annual wages and benefits of $1.7 million.
"It's historical. It's monumental," said Craig Hunter, the chairman of the Surry County Board of Commissioners.
Company officials made the announcement yesterday afternoon inside the county- government center in Dobson. As many as 40 people crowded into the commissioners' meeting room to celebrate, including residents from Wilkes County, which had been in the running for the plant.
Surry County is expected to give Fibrowatt a tax-incentive and construction-assistance package valued at $3.2 million over eight years, Hunter said. As part of the deal, Surry will also offer assistance with improvements to water and sewer and roads.
The details of the package are still being worked out. A public hearing on the incentives will be held in the coming weeks, Hunter said. Also, there could be additional state grants and incentives.
"The company did not ask for an incentive package. These are incentives that the county commissioners put on the table," Hunter said.
The deal was more than two years in the making.
The Surry County Economic Development Partnership got a tip that Fibrowatt was looking to put a plant in Northwest North Carolina, and in October 2005, it began a relationship with the company.
Robin Rhyne, the partnership's president, quickly got to work finding a suitable site. She also organized a trip by private corporate jet to visit Fibrowatt's first United States plant in Benson, Minn.
Fibrowatt was founded in England, and on a tour of the company's plants there with representatives from other North Carolina counties, she "cornered" the company's president, Rupert Fraser, to discuss Surry County as he sipped a pint of his favorite ale at a hotel, he said.
At one point, Fraser began to think of Rhyne as a member of his own team, he said.
"She sold the benefits of Surry County to us," said Fraser, describing the Surry location as "unbeatable."
The site near Elkin is a 60-acre tract along the Yadkin River next to a Duke Energy plant, poultry producers and such major roads as Interstate 77 and N.C. 268.
Wilkes County had offered a site in an industrial park owned by North Wilkesboro.
Charlie Sink, the chairman of the Wilkes County Board of Commissioners, said that Fibrowatt officials met with Wilkes County leaders to let them know ahead of yesterday's announcement.
"Obviously, we're disappointed," Sink said, adding, "Our farmers will benefit from it, but the big loss is the tax base."
Elkin borders Wilkes County, and Fibrowatt is expected to contract with farmers in both Surry and Wilkes counties to buy their chicken waste.
The plant would support 80 or more jobs in plant operations, fuel transportation, barn clean-
out services and the operation of a fertilizer plant.
It is also expected to create as many as 300 construction jobs during the two years of construction. And it could contribute an estimated $10 million a year to the local economy through fuel purchases and transportation, employee payroll and plant-maintenance costs.
Fibrowatt burns chicken litter, a combination of waste and wood shavings, to fuel electric power plants. The company opened its first U.S. plant in Minnesota last October. It wants to put three plants in North Carolina. In April, Fibrowatt announced a site in Sampson County. The company is still deciding on a third site in Moore, Montgomery County or Stanly counties.
Fibrowatt plans to begin construction in 2009 and would begin operating in Surry in 2011.
The Elkin plant will be designed to produce as much as 40 megawatts of electricity, generating enough energy to power about 30,000 homes.
The General Assembly passed a law last year requiring power companies to begin using renewable energy sources. In addition to wind and solar power, renewable energy includes energy generated from animal waste. Fibrowatt played a role in the drafting of the energy law. According to state records, it spent $84,600 to hire lobbyists.
Opponents argue that some types of renewable energy are better than others. And some environmentalists have concerns about potentially harmful effects from burning animal waste.
"These poultry-waste plants are dirtier basically than a modern coal-fired power plant," said Lou Zeller, with the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.
The group compared an air-quality permit for Fibrowatt's existing plant in Minnesota with a proposed permit for Duke Energy's Cliffside plant, a coal-burning plant still under construction, and found that some of Fibrowatt's emissions are higher.
Critics also say that the state mandate will be a boon to Fibrowatt, the only company in the nation that operates a large-scale power plant fueled by poultry waste.
"The legislation is written in such a way that only Fibrowatt would qualify for it. And that appears to have happened in North Carolina, and that's bad public policy," said David Morris, the vice president of the Institute of Local Self-Reliance, an advocacy group based in Minnesota and Washington.
But Fibrowatt officials say they are meeting the demands for renewable energy in a way that will not introduce new greenhouse gases into the environment.
"Some people are not going to like what we do no matter what we do.… It's just rubbish. I don't know why people listen to him," Fraser said of Morris. "We did not request the inclusion of poultry litter in that legislation."
The next steps in Surry County will be to obtain contracts with local poultry growers, complete a power-purchase agreement, and secure project financing.
Fibrowatt is negotiating with Duke Energy for a contract, Fraser said. Duke Energy doesn't comment on whether it's negotiating with a company until a deal is in place, a spokeswoman said.
■ Sherry Youngquist can be reached in Mount Airy at 336-789-9338 or at syoungquist@wsjournal.com.
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
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