POLICYÂŚ
MUNCY, PA
est health restoration across California. We expect that many projects on national forest system lands will be supplying biomass to BioRAM facilities.� But, as Spurlock says, as forest restoration projects expand beyond those areas easily accessible by highways and community streets, it’s likely that costs for extracting and moving the biomass will increase with the longer haul distance, according to Taylor. “Financial support and incentives for off-setting these higher costs are currently limited, and may impact the amount of material a biomass facility is able to acquire,� he says. “The forest service is developing a biomass utilization strategy that will identify biomass opportunities on the national forests and their proximity to biomass facilities to assist in the industry’s planning process.� Taylor says he hopes that the forest service’s continuing discussions within the State Tree Mortality Task Force’s Bioenergy Working Group will yield solutions to overcome those limitations. The group, in concert with six other segments with different focuses, was formed to address problems such as these as they arise. Made up of a range of stakeholders, from bioenergy plant personnel, developers, utilities, forestry groups, the California Energy Commission, California Public Utilities Commission and more, the Bioenergy Working Group group formally convenes once a month, according to Angie Lottes, group leader. “We’re focused on the things we can do now to use biomass material, mostly from high-hazard zones,� she says. “Another group defines areas that have critical infrastructure impacted by dead and dying trees, and areas that just have a profound amount of dead and dying zones, not near critical infrastructure, but
that have large impacts in terms of wildfire—this group focuses more on longterm utilization and product and market development.� So far, says Lottes, the working group has been fairly successful. “We helped facilitate the new contracts for the existing plants with expiring contracts, and we’re also helping facilitate contracts for the new BioMAT power plants—overall, 175 MW of mandated contracts,� she says. “It’s significantly more progress than before—previously, I was under the impression that nothing could be done [for closing biomass plants]. The politics weren’t there. But this has been a big, unexpected win.� For the new plants, it’s been hard, Lottes admits. “Mostly, during our meetings, we are outlining problems and finding subworking groups that can work on them. We have to work pretty closely with the PUC, because most of what is mandated is in their jurisdiction, and they have a lot of procedural requirements— those can take time to move along. Most recently, we’ve been working on the new plants. The PUC has been ordered to facilitate interconnection agreements, and through that order, we’ve been doing a lot to try to lower the cost of interconnection for these plants.� For the renewed contracts, it was mostly a matter of getting them into place, Lottes says. “It was figuring out— legally—what the PUC could tell the utilities to do. Though those contracts are up and running, Lottes, too, mentions the future challenging of forest service funding to get material out of the woods. “They need the staff and the funding to be able to set up a restoration thinning project, or even a timber sale,� she says. “That’s actually a pretty big challenge— the forest service might identify an area that can be thinned, and one year, they
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017 | BIOMASS MAGAZINE 21