New bio-mass plant gets green light from P&G

ALBANY, GA (WALB) - The plant will significantly increase P&G's use of renewable energy, helping move the company closer to its 2020 goal of obtaining 30 percent of its total energy from renewable sources.

Constellation will build, own and operate the $200 million co-generation plant, which will supply steam to P&G's Albany paper manufacturing facility and generate electricity for the local utility, Georgia Power.

For more than 30 years, the Albany facility has successfully used a smaller onsite biomass boiler to convert wood scraps into renewable steam, providing about 30 percent of the total energy. The new facility will replace P&G's aging boiler with a highly efficient combined heat and power biomass unit. Incoming biomass will provide 100 percent of the steam, and up to 60-70 percent of the total energy used to manufacture Bounty paper towels and Charmin toilet tissue.

The facility is Constellation's newest project in its active and growing distributed energy business, which has more than 300 megawatts of assets in operation or under development.

In the initial planning for the facility, P&G and Constellation outlined sustainable “procurement standards” for the project. The plant's fuel supply will come from biomass that would otherwise have been left to decay, burned, or potentially sent to landfill, including 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.

The project also included collaboration with the Albany-Dougherty Payroll Development Authority, local city, county and state leaders, including leadership and ongoing support from the Georgia Public Service Commission, as well as energy companies. DCO Energy will hold a minority stake in the project and provide engineering, procurement and construction services for the project. Constellation's affiliate, Exelon Generation, will operate and maintain the plant. Sterling Energy Assets worked with Constellation to develop the project.

Construction activities have already begun on the site with the plant scheduled to begin commercial operation in June 2017. Construction is expected to create up to 500 new jobs over the next two years, with an additional 50 to 70 permanent local jobs for ongoing operations once the plant is built.

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