Biomass Power Plant Fuels Nevada Prison

CARSON CITY, Nev. — Northern Nevada Correctional Center unveiled a new $8 million renewable-energy power plant that is projected to save more than $9 million in energy costs during the next 20 years.

Designed by Arizona-based APS Energy Services around an integrated wood-fired boiler and a 1,000-kilowatt steam turbine generator that converts the biomass material to electricity, the power plant also features a 30-kilowatt photovoltaic solar array.

With the capacity to provide more than enough electricity, heat and hot water for the 1,200-inmate, medium-security NNCC facility, the plant will also power the adjacent 240-inmate Stewart Conservation Camp. Excess electricity generated by the plant will be sold to the Sierra Pacific Power Co.

Burning the biomass material under controlled conditions at temperatures greater than 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, the plant is designed to limit the levels of carbon emissions and particulate matter released into the atmosphere, officials say.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors approved the plant following several design-component enhancements that are projected to reduce carbon and particulate-matter emissions by about 75 percent from the plant’s original design specifications.

The plant, which came online in September, is expected to reduce annual facility energy expenditures — predominantly natural gas — by more than $300,000, officials say.

The biomass component of the plant, which will burn up to 21,000 tons of primarily wood-chip material, will use processed forestry waste from thinning operations at local forests.

Carson City Renewable Resources, which processes the forest waste into two-inch wood chips, will supply more than 15,000 tons of the material for the NNCC facility.

However, with forestry byproducts in high demand, critics of the new plant question the reliability and long-term economic viability of biomass material supplies from forestry operations. The facility will also source post-commercial and post-consumer wood material, such as pallets, from a Carson City landfill, officials say.