New Hampshire’s largest utility reached a settlement Tuesday to buy energy from a group of small wood-power plants that had objected to its decision to buy power for a larger plant to be built in Berlin, The Associated Press reports.
The state’s Public Utilities Commission would have to approve the settlement between Public Service of New Hampshire, which is a unit of Northeast Utilities, and the biomass plants.
The small plants had had power agreements with PSNH, but they expired. They said the utility’s decision for a 20-year purchase power agreement with the Berlin plant would hurt them. Talks for the Berlin BioPower plant broke off last month after the plants filed objections with the commission and with the state Supreme Court.
Gov. John Lynch on Tuesday urged the commission to support the settlement, saying it would help with plans to construct the new biomass plant and to retain jobs.
“Given the state of the energy market today, it has become difficult for small wood-fired plants to continue to operate without the stability of contracts to sell their power to a utility company,” Lynch said in a letter to the commission. “The Power Purchase Agreements address a short-term problem in a measured and responsible way. The petition and settlement agreement will also allow the Berlin BioPower project to go forward, which is an important step forward for economic development in Coos County.”
Supporters of the proposed plant in economically depressed Berlin say the plant, which was expected to go online in 2014, will create 40 permanent jobs, plus many temporary construction jobs and help the forest industry — loggers, haulers and foresters who help bring fuel to the plant. Opponents said the power agreement with PSNH violated a provision in the state’s renewable energy law and isn’t in the public interest.
Berlin and Coos County officials have had high hopes for the plant to be built on the site of a former pulp mill. The 100-year-old mill closed in 2006, leaving many people out of work and Berlin without a main industry. The city hopes jobs and a boost to the local economy would be created with the opening of a newly built federal prison, but budget debates in Congress left the project without funds this fiscal year.
Mike O’Leary, plant manager of Bridgewater Power Company in Bristol, one of the biomass plants, said the plants appreciate the efforts that produced the settlement, supporting the continuation of the existing wood plant and forestry jobs and related economic benefits to the North Country.
“We look forward to PUC approval so that these jobs and benefits are sure to continue,” O’Leary said.
