The Montville Biomass Project:
Jobs, Renewable Energy and Innovation

Project Overview

The Montville Biomass project will provide up to 40 megawatts (MW) of clean, renewable power, enough to supply about 32,000-40,000 average households. This project will also create and retain jobs, help sustain the local tax base, and contribute significantly to the State’s requirement to source 20% of its power from Class I renewable resources by 2020.

Jobs Benefits

The Montville project will help retain about 35 current jobs at the plant and create about 75 union jobs during construction. It will also create about 200 fulltime jobs in the forestry and logistics industries in conjunction with providing and transporting the biomass fuel.

Benefits to the Local Economy

In addition to the significant number of jobs created and retained, the Montville project will help sustain the local tax base. Given the recent shutdown of the nearby AES facility, maintaining the viability of an electric generation facility within Montville is now of vital importance. The NRG facility has been a significant taxpayer within Montville and has continuously provided well-paying jobs and economic benefits to the region. The proposed biomass redevelopment of NRG’s Montville plan is an important part of the community’s financial future.

Delivering Renewable Power in Connecticut

In 1998, the State of Connecticut passed a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that established a requirement that 20% of its power be sourced from Class I resources, which includes hydro, fuel cell, wind, solar and biomass. The Montville Biomass project meets the criteria for a Class I renewable resource by using clean wood biomass from local forestry and timber resources. The Montville facility will contribute significantly to Connecticut’s goal of 20% renewable power by 2020.

Plant and Project Description

The Montville Station currently is a two-unit, 500 MW plant fueled by natural gas and oil. The project is designed to enhance the boiler on unit 5, which today is an 82 megawatt (MW) unit fueled by natural gas or oil, to instead use clean wood biomass as the primary fuel source.

In re-configuring the boiler to use wood, its output will be reduced from 82 MW to 40 MW, however, the unit will still be capable of achieving the full 82 MW output when operated on natural gas or ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel oil. This is important, in case the larger capability of the unit is needed as a “peaker” plant in times of excessive demand on the system, such as on especially hot summer days.

The project is fully permitted and approved, and could be in construction within 6 months if a contract to purchase the power from the plant is procured.

For a downloadable fact sheet on the project in PDF, click here.