A 50 megawatt biomass plant, one of the largest in the United States, is being developed by Procter & Gamble and Constellation in Georgia.
The plant, which will be built, owned and operated by Constellation, will supply steam to P&G’s paper manufacturing facility in Albany, Georgia.
The plant will use waste woody biomass such as discarded tree tops, limbs, branches and scrap wood from local forestry operations, crop residuals such as pecan shells and peanut hulls, and mill waste, such as sawdust.
Construction on the plant has already begun and commercial operation is scheduled to begin in June of 2017.
The Albany facility has been using biomass power from more than 30 years, converting woodscraps into steam with a smaller onsite biomass boiler. The onsite biomass boiler supplied around 30 percent of the facilities total energy.
The new plant will replace the aging boiler system with a highly efficient combined heat and power biomass unit. Incoming biomass will provide 100 percent of the steam and up to 60 to 70 percent of the energy used in manufacturing.