National Renewable Energy Laboratory

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NREL's Smoke-Free Wood Chip Furnace Set for Ignition

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

WHAT:  NREL is lighting its smoke-free Renewable Fuels Heating Plant. The $3.3 million project is the laboratory's latest step toward operating as a net-zero energy facility. It will heat South Table Mountain Campus laboratory buildings by burning wood chips that include construction waste and trees lost to the region's mountain pine beetle epidemic. The plant will offset 4.8 million pounds of carbon dioxide each year and displace as much as 80 percent of the 50,000 million BTUs of natural gas used annually to heat the STM campus. The project is funded by an innovative Energy Savings Performance Contract with Ameresco Inc., an energy services company, and negotiated under the U.S. Department of Energy's Transformational Energy Action Management (TEAM) Initiative.

WHO:              U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory

WHEN:            10 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 20   

WHERE:         NREL South Table Mesa Campus

CHECK-IN:     NREL Visitors Center. 15013 Denver West Parkway, Golden. For map and directions go to http://www.nrel.gov/visitors_center/contact_visit.html

NOTE:  Visitors to NREL must show government-issued photo ID. Media must wear closed, sturdy shoes. Hard hats and safety glasses will be provided and must be worn to enter the RFHP.  Space is limited. NREL and DOE representatives will be available for interviews after the lighting procedure begins.

For further information contact NREL Public Relations at 303-275-4090.
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