Wisconsin Business and Agriculture Turn to Biomass

Wisconsin's dairy farms are producing more than milk and cheese.

February 2009

Two biomass projects are moving forward in Wisconsin.

A wood flooring manufacturing plant in Mercer is using its own residual waste to power both manufacturing and space heating. With help from the state's Focus on Energy initiative, Action Floor Systems, LLC, replaced an outdated and inefficient heating system with a new boiler that eliminates the need for natural gas, saves money, and decreases environmental impact.

The company, which is located in northern Wisconsin near Lake Superior, manufactures and distributes wood floors for sports facilities. The Mercer facility uses steam for wood-drying kilns and space heating.

In November 2008, the company installed a new, high-efficiency boiler that replaces an older, natural-gas-fired boiler and a 50-year-old, wood-fired boiler. Wood residues from the manufacturing process provide fuel for the new boiler.

Focus on Energy provided technical assistance and an implementation grant worth $200,000 to the project. With a total cost of about $1.1 million, the new biomass heating system is expected to recoup the investment in roughly three and a half years, based on the alternative cost of natural gas.

Focus on Energy is the state's energy efficiency and renewable energy initiative that is funded by a small surcharge. Focus on Energy offers technical assistance, financial assistance, and grants to residential and business customers of participating utilities.

To learn more about the Action Floor Systems project, read the Focus on Energy January 6 press release.

Wisconsin Farms to Expand Manure-to-Fuel Systems

Wisconsin leads the nation in converting manure into electricity and is on track to significantly expand its number of anaerobic digesters in the coming years.

With 19 digester projects, Wisconsin is narrowly ahead of second-place California. An article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quotes Don Wichert, director of renewable energy for Wisconsin's Focus on Energy program: "We have 16 projects under contract right now, set to go in, so we should be doubling the number of digesters in this state in the next year."

Wichert noted that anaerobic digesters are most cost-effective for large farms. He predicted an eventual tenfold increase in the number of digesters in Wisconsin, based on the state's 250 farms with a minimum of 500 cows each.

Focus on Energy, the state's energy efficiency and renewable energy initiative, reported to the Journal Sentinel that while most of Wisconsin's anaerobic digester projects use manure, some use organic waste from other manufacturing processes. For instance, a partnership between one of the state's breweries and a group of businesses has set up a system that converts waste from the brewing process to produce enough biogas to power nearly 500 homes.

To learn more, read the article, "Wisconsin boasts most manure-to-energy projects" from the December 6, 2008 edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.