Tim Maker, Senior Program DirectorBiomass Energy Resource Center

OVERVIEW OF WOOD-FIRED DISTRICT HEATING

Vermont Technical CollegeRandolph, VermontMarch 18, 2008

It’s Not Easy Building Green

Vermont Community Development AssociationWinter Meeting

Biomass Energy Resource Center (BERC)

BERC is a national not-for-profit organization working to

promote responsible use of biomass for energy.

BERC’s mission is to achieve a healthier environment,

strengthen local economies, and increase energy security

across the United States by developing sustainable biomass

systems at the community level.

Imagine your community’s downtown center.

Imagine what it would be like to:

• Get off oil.

• To use a heating fuel that comes from your county.

• Keep all heating fuel dollars in the local economy.

• Become a renewably heated community.

• Know that building heat would be affordable no

matter what happened in the world.

This presentation and the ones that follow are about realizing this vision.

First, let’s look at the future of oil availability

and oil cost.

Crude Oil Production in the US

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Peak Production in 1970

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1900 1925 1950 1975 2000 2025 2050 2075 2100

Bil

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History

Forecast

USGS Estimates of Ultimate Recovery

Note: US volumes were added to the USGS foreign volumes to obtain world totals.

Peak in 2030

World Oil Production History & Forecast:

One Scenario

Source: US DOE, Energy Information Administration

After the World Oil Peak – What Happens to Communities in Rural Areas?

• Very high, rapidly increasing oil and gas costs

• Competitive disadvantage

• Economic un-development

• Dependence on an unfriendly global economy

High oil prices and reduced oil availability will have a big impact on Vermont’s communities.

• Transportation

• Community planning

• Downtown development

• Vibrant, resilient, secure communities

Local Energy:A new paradigm for the relationship between communities and forests

What Are the Characteristics of Local Energy?

• Uses community-scale technology

• Replaces fossil fuels with local biomass*, for heat

and power

• Uses efficient, clean technology

• Has strict requirement for sustainable fuels

* In Vermont, biomass fuel means low-grade wood.

What Are the Benefits of Local Energy?

• Keeps local energy dollars circulating in the community

• Displaces expensive fossil fuels and increases security

• Scaled to link community energy economy with local

resources

• Acts as a force for sustainable forestry

• Uses available fuel, woodchips or pellets, at high efficiency

• Uses manageable volumes of biomass for each project

• Supports forest-products industry and creates jobs

Comparative Cost of Heat -Various Fuels

Fuel Unit Cost/unit Average Efficiency

$/MMBtu Delivered

Heating Oil gallons $3.00 80% $27.17

Propane gallons $2.50 85% $31.97

Natural Gas MMBtu $12 85% $14.12

Woodchips tons $50 70% $7.09

Wood Pellets tons $220 80% $17.23

Compares individual building fossil fuel heating to biomass (wood) district heating

What Does Local Energy Look Like?

• School woodchip and pellet heating

• Other institutional heating

• Wood-fired campus energy systems

• Community district energy

(using wood fuel)

• Small-scale power generation and CHP

Community District Heating

Wood-fired central heating plant, with buried

hot water piping to individual buildings

District Heat Infrastructure

District heat pipes being laid in shallow trench

District Heating in Europe

• In Denmark, 60% of residences (1.5 million homes)

are heated through district systems.

• In Finland, 50% of all space heating comes from

district heating; over 90% of all apartments, public and

commercial buildings are connected to district heat.

• Belgrade has 300 miles of district heat piping serving

180 million square feet of building space.

(In the US only 3% of space heating is done with district heat systems.)

District Heating in Europe

District heat share of single-family houses:

• Iceland 85% (geothermal)

• Denmark 47% (16% biomass)

• Austria 13% (21% biomass)

• Finland 12% (18% biomass)

• Sweden 11% (42% biomass)

Source: http://www.euroheat.org/ecoheatcool/documents/Ecoheatcool%20WP4%20Web.pdf

District Heating in Europe

• 5,000 community district heating systems in Europe

• 78% of district heat sources are non-fossil

• Biomass (wood residues) is the biggest fuel source

• Other heat sources also used: industrial waste heat,

heat from CHP, geothermal, waste incineration

In Vermont we don’t have these other heat sources, but what we do have lot of is BIOMASS.

Biomass Community District Energy

UrbanSetting

District Energy St. Paul

Biomass Community District Energy

Small

Community

Setting

Charlottetown, PEI, Canada

Biomass Community District Energy

Green Acres Family HousingBarre, Vermont

Small-Scale

Setting

Biomass Community District Energy

Cobb Hill Co-HousingHartland Four Corners, Vermont

Cordwood boiler system

Creating New from OldWood-fired District Heating

Montpelier State Complex District Heating System

New District/Campus Wood Energy

Crotched Mountain Rehab CenterGreenfield, New Hampshire

Wood Fuel Sources for District Energy

Fuel Transport and Delivery

Biomass District Energy Development Issues

How do we build a new kind of municipal

infrastructure?

• It’s not a technology issue.

• It’s a money issue.

Biomass District Energy Development Issues

Where could the capital come from?

• Federal $

• State $

• Municipal bonds

• Private capital

• Fuel cost savings (ESCOs, a new NESCO?)

Conclusion

Using our abundant wood residues to replace fossil

fuels to heat downtowns using district energy

systems makes sense in many ways.

The challenge is how to organize and finance this

new form of municipal infrastructure.

Timothy MakerSenior Program Director

Biomass Energy Resource Center43 State StreetMontpelier, VT 05601802-223-7770 X 123

tmaker@biomasscenter.org

Contact Information

www.biomasscenter.org