Californian public agency announces €161,000 biomass grant

Californian public agency Yuba Water Agency announced that a new biomass facility near Camptonville, California will be receiving a $185,000 (€161,372) grant from the agency.

The funding itself will help the Camptonville Community Partnership secure a power purchase agreement with California utility firm Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E).

“Biomass is a hot topic at all levels of the state right now and we are really focused on that as a possible way to help spark further forest management work to reduce fire risk, support our watershed and help the state’s energy needs at the same time,” said Yuba Water Agency vice-chairman Randy Fletcher.

“Getting to this power purchase agreement is a major milestone that we can help them achieve.”

The planned 3MW facility will use woody biomaterial from sustainable forest management projects to generate electricity.

“We can do all the forest restoration work that we want, but there must be an outlet for that material that is economically viable,” said Regine Miller, bioenergy project manager for the Camptonville Community Partnership.

“We believe that our community-scale bioenergy facility can be an outlet for that material.”