This efficient biomass burner uses wood waste product from U.S. Forest Service activities, reducing the school's fuel costs.
Photo by Tim Engleson.

There’s a new math in northwest Montana, and thanks to a local co-op, it equals big savings for a public school system.

The equation goes like this: add a major loan from a local co-op to partnerships with other agencies and a healthy dose of energy-efficiency innovation.

The result is a $1.3 million biomass heating system that could save the public school system in Eureka millions of dollars in the next three decades.

The numbers don’t end there, either. Lincoln Electric Co-op, Eureka, helped to get the project rolling with a $300,000 zero-interest loan to the Eureka Public School District under the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Rural Economic Development Loans and Grants program.

As the district repays the loan, the money will go into a perpetual $360,000 revolving loan fund to leverage resources for other development projects in the co-op’s two-county service area.

Little wonder, then, that Mike Henry, general manager of Lincoln Electric, calls it a “win-win-win” situation for everyone.

“The community, the school system and co-op members alike, all have something to gain from seeing this project completed,” he said.

The bottom line is that the elementary, middle school and high school buildings in the Eureka public school system are being heated by a clean-burning, energy-efficient plant that will save the district big money for the life of the system.

According to school superintendent Jim Mepham, the biomass plant costs approximately $150 a day to operate, compared with $1,500 to $2,000 per day the school was paying for fuel oil and propane.

The school can expect a positive cash flow in four years with a projected savings of $5 million in the next 30 years.

As for the community, Angela Farr, a representative of the U.S. Forest Service’s Fuels for Schools program, noted that the biomass system will kick start a new value-added industry in the area by using a waste product from forest management activities.

“By burning slash in modern, efficient boilers rather than in open piles, we reduce the air quality impact and use heat that otherwise would be wasted. We also shift fossil fuel users to a local renewable resource and reduce net greenhouse gas emissions,” she said.

To get the ball rolling, Lincoln Electric and sister co-op InterBel Telephone each contributed $30,000 in seed money as part of the grant application process.

And The Climate Trust, a Portland, Ore.-based organization that backs projects to offset greenhouse gas emissions, paid the school district more than $50,000 to swap its inefficient fossil fuel boilers for the renewable-fueled wood boiler. The middle school’s steam boiler was built around 1920 and the elementary school boiler around 1950.

Henry said the project, which was three years in the making, represented a grassroots effort involving all facets of the small community.

“Lincoln Electric is pleased to play a role in it and considers it part of meeting our mission statement to provide reliable energy, at reasonable rates, with exceptional member service and commitment to the communities we serve,” he said.

This article by Steven Johnson is reprinted with permission from Electric Co-op Today.