-!2+%43!.$&).!.#% MARKETS AND FINANCE Biomass Thermal Energy Council Update New WPAC President Bioenergy International No 78, 2-2015 31 Bioenergy International No 78, 2-2015 31 Biomass Thermal Utilization (BTU) Act of 2015 In February, Senator Angus King (Independent, Maine) and Congressman Peter Welch (Democrat, Vermont) announced plans to introduce the BTU Act to the U.S. Congress. This legislation will extend tax credits, which are currently available to all other renewable energy sources, to biomass heating systems. Due to the urgency of other legislative business, Senator King is expected to introduce the BTU Act to the Senate in March. In the House of Representatives, Congressman Peter Welch along with Congressman Chris Gibson (Republican, New York) introduced H.R. 1145, the Biomass Thermal Utilization Act of 2015. The bill was referred to the House Ways & Means Committee. The introduction of the BTU Act sends a bipartisan signal to Congress to consider advanced biomass heating technologies in broad energy and tax reform legislation. While renewable energy technologies like wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass power have received investment tax credits for many years, biomass thermal technologies, despite being the most affordable of all of the above, have not received similar acknowledgment in the U.S. tax code. CHP Tax Legislation One of BTEC’s goals is to reintroduce CHP tax legislation to the US Congress and modify the incentive to be more inclusive of heat-led CHP systems. The “POWER Act” of 2014 would increase the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) to 30 percent for CHP technologies and include Waste Heat-to-Power in the same level. Currently, the CHP ITC requires systems to be 60 percent efficient overall, but systems must also meet a 20 percent minimum electrical efficiency. Although biomass heat-led CHP systems easily surpass the 60 percent overall efficiency requirement, their electrical efficiency is often below 20 percent since most energy is di- On March 19, US President Obama signed a new Executive Order titled “Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade,” which will guide federal agencies toward more sustainable government operations. Though the order addresses many aspects of landscape architecture and community planning the emphasis is on the sustainable design and management of federal facilities. The Executive Order also calls for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions across federal operations by at least 40 percent through 2025 through a broad host of measures, including building energy conservation, energy procurement inclusive of renewable thermal technology, and fleet management. In a joint statement the Biomass Thermal Energy Council (BTEC) and the Pellet Fuels Institute (PFI) commend President Obama’s commitment to expanding the use of renewable thermal energy with the issuance of Executive Order ” – The President’s Executive Order demonstrates strong and resourceful leadership in transforming federal operations through energy management. In particular, we applaud the President for creating new pathways for deploying safe, cost effective and innovative technologies, including biomass thermal energy, for heating and electricity, while reinforcing energy efficiency, said BTEC’s Executive Director Joseph Seymour in the statement. – Promoting the use of proven renewable technologies like those that utilize pellet heat for federal buildings makes good sense. Using wood pellets to heat buildings is cost effective and environmentally friendly - and is a method that more federal agencies are exploring, said Jennifer Hedrick, Executive Director of the Pellet Fuels Institute. In a 2014 Green Proving Ground report, the General Services Administration (GSA) concluded that biomass heating systems could be deployed at facilities nationwide that currently rely on fuel oil for thermal energy needs. Last winter, the Ketchikan Federal Building in Ketchikan, Alaska, became the first federal building managed by GSA with a pellet boiler. Furthermore, in a February 2015 letter Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) requested of GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini that his agency should reconsider its procurement policies that limit federal facilities’ use of biomass for heating. The Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) has reported that in Fiscal Year 2013, federal buildings used approximately 143 million gallons of fuel oil and 19 million gallons of propane, for a total cost of nearly US$534 million. Editor’s note: The full text of the order: www.whitehouse.gov/ the-press-office/2015/03/19/ executive-order-planning-federalsustainability next-decade BI78/4810/AS rected towards thermal needs, which makes them ineligible. Standards Harmonization Developing standards for biomass system efficiency test methods, commercial boiler equipment, woodchips, and CO2 off-gassing from stored pellets are just a few areas in which BTEC is heavily engaged. Since these are also areas that European biomass businesses have worked on for decades, BTEC is looking to use their expertise and guidance. The European perspective is necessary when developing U.S. biomass standards since it would help to dramatically decrease costs for selling systems in the US domestic heating market. For more information or to get involved with BTEC, please email BTEC Executive Director Joseph Seymour joseph.seymour@ biomassthermal.org Dayanita Ramesh, BTEC Project Assistant www.biomassthermal.org BI78/4794/AS Emanuel Wagner, BTEC Programs Manager, addressing the recent European Pellet Conference at the annual World Sustainable Energy Days in Wels, Austria. BTEC, PFI applaud Obama’s Executive Order for recognizing thermal energy in Federal GHG emissions reduction goals The Wood Pellet Association of Canada (WPAC) has announced the appointment of Michele Rebiere as President and Director of WPAC replacing Brad Bennett who has stepped down for personal reasons. In addition to her new WPAC role, Rebiere is CFO of Viridis Energy Inc. Viridis owns and operates Okanagan Pellet Company (BC), Scotia Atlantic Biomass (Nova Scotia) and Viridis Merchants (New Jersey). Additional appointments announced by the WPAC board include Rene Landry, Operations Manager Shaw Resources, as WPAC Vice President and Director, and Wayne Young, President Pacific BioEnergy as WPAC Director. BI78/4811/AS
Bioenergy no 2 - March 2015
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