Camptonville, California – October 6, 2016. A community meeting will be help in Camptonville on Thursday, October 20, to address questions and concerns about a proposed biomass facility.
“The purpose of the meeting is to provide an update on the status of the biomass facility, including options for ownership and companies that may partner with the community to build and operate the plant,” said Regine Miller, bioenergy project manager for the Camptonville Community Partnership.
CCP, a non-profit organization promoting the biomass facility, will host the meeting from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at the Camptonville Community Center. The meeting will also feature an update on the project’s permitting status, and opportunities for community input and questions.
Miller said that the biomass facility would be part of a new business campus, located at the site of a former sawmill in Celestial Valley, which closed in the ‘90s. CCP hopes to attract other businesses to the site, where heat and power would be available from the facility.
If constructed, the biomass facility would generate up to 3 megawatts of electricity using a steam boiler and turbine generator. The fuel for the plant would come from local forest management activities, such as the removal of dead or dying trees or forest thinning to reduce fire risk.
The Camptonville facility is one of several projects in the state that hope to qualify for a new program that requires large utilities like PG&E to purchase 50 megawatts of electricity from small, “community-scale” biomass power plants. A similar project, spearheaded by the Nevada County Biomass Task Force, is planned for Grass Valley.
