Heating a Whole Town With Wood

Imagine a town getting heat the same way it gets electricity and water.

A central plant sends it to each house, school and business.

Then imagine that plant doesn’t use heating oil.

And, residents no longer have to own furnaces or hot-water heaters.

It is called “district heating.”

“The technology is really rather simple, it is just a matter of heating water and then distributing that water through super-insulated pipes.”

That is Richard DeMark. He works for the federal government’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

He’s been helping the North Country Resource Conservation and Development Council explore district heating.

“It is really no different than a water and sewage utility but you are distributing hot water for heating of homes and for domestic hot water use.”

Residents would be charged the same way as for electricity or water.

Much of the research on district heating comes from Denmark where it is popular.

DeMark says it looks like such systems would be good for the north country.

First they could burn lower-quality wood.

In addition they are more efficient than a biomass plant that burns wood just to make electricity.

So district heating would help conserve a renewable, North-Country resource.

DeMark admits the concept is unusual.

But he says eliminating heating oil should appeal to the people he calls “proud and independent Yankees.”

Peter Riviere is the executive director of the Coos Economic Development Corp.

“We’re looking for something that benefits the working guy here, the business guy here that uses local resources locally.”

Riviere says district heating could save people money and protect them from rising oil costs.

It would also be a better deal for the North Country than inefficiently burning a limited supply of wood to provide electricity for people who live elsewhere.

DeMark said towns such as Colebrook, Groveton and Berlin are among those intrigued by the new idea. So is the Mount Washington Resort.

Groveton is the farthest along.

Stephen LaFrance is the president of Horizons Engineering in Littleton.

He worked with a Danish firm to study a plan for Groveton.

They figured it would take about $13 million to bring district heating to downtown.

“It would service a total of 427 commercial and residential buildings, including the local churches and the schools.”

Horizons also calculated the savings.

“What we found was that using a retail oil price of $4 per gallon, a boiler efficiency of 85 percent and a per-ton cost for wood chips of $40 if we pushed the payback out to 20 years the savings would be upwards of 40 percent.”

David Auger is one of the Groveton citizens who has been working on the concept.

“The people who live in Groveton would have a long-term advantage in several ways.”

One way is that residents would never again have to replace furnaces or hot-water heaters.

And residents and businesses would be protected from rising oil prices.

“We are hopeful this could be a competitive advantage long term for business development in the town.”

The catch, of course, is finding that 13 million dollars.

One possibility, however, would be the billions of dollars in President-elect Obama’s proposed economic stimulus package. DeMark said that is being pursued.

DeMark says there are other issues, too.

Would such a facility be run by a private, for-profit company? A town? Or perhaps a non-profit organization?

The North-Country task force has scheduled a meeting to work on the idea Wednesday morning at Plymouth State University.

For NHPR News this is Chris Jensen in Bethlehem.