Snowflake White Mountain Power  
   
  NZ Legacy, LLC is currently building a 24MW electrical generation biomass plant, Snowflake White Mountain Power (SWMP) near Snowflake, Arizona. The $53 million plant is expected to be completed within the first few months of 2008, when it will begin full production to meet the power obligations under its 20-year Power Purchase Agreements with Arizona Public Services (APS) and Salt River Project (SRP).  
     
 

The plant is being built at the Abitibi Paper Mill 12 miles west of Snowflake, AZ.

  
 

 

  
  Plant Facts and History:  
 

 

  
 

On September 27, 2004, SRP notified SWMP that SWMP’s bid was selected as the result of their RFP to purchase 10MW of biomass produced power. Negotiations with SRP were quickly completed and a 20-year PPA was signed. SRP will take 10MW of the power for the first 15 years of the contract and the full 20MW of production for the following five years.

  
     
 

APS has also agreed to take another 10 MW of biomass generated power from this plant and has signed a PPA to purchase this power for 15 years.

  
     
 

Both PPAs have price escalators in place for the life of the agreements.

  
     
 

The plant will be built with a new Babcock and Wilcox bubbling fluidized bed boiler being built specifically to meet the fuel makeup at SWMP. The plant’s economics are also improved by taking advantage of an idled paper facility in Houston, Texas from where much of the SWMP plant’s other components (conveyors, screw presses, etc.) are being acquired.

  
 

 

  
 

Fuel for the biomass plant will come from two main sources. First will be woody waste material from the surrounding National Forests. This work is being undertaken by another NZ Legacy owned company, Renegy, LLC, which will harvest and provide fuel from green forest thinning activities, forest rehabilitation work on the burn area of the Rodeo-Chediski fire area and waste material from the region’s existing saw mills. Secondly, the Abitibi paper mill, where SWMP is located, produces 250 bone dry tons of waste recycled paper fibers each day which are currently sent to an adjoining landfill. These paper fibers will now be sent through an additional pressing facility to lower their moisture content and will become additional fuel for the SWMP boiler.

  
 

 

  
 

Other significant benefits of locating the biomass facility at Abitibi include:

  
 

 

  
 
•
 Our ability to use Abitibi’s new 40+ MW state of the art digital substation with only 3-4 MW used by existing plant requirements. Interconnections, relays and switches are all less than 4 years old. Our interconnection agreement with APS, the local provider, is already in place.
 
•
 69KV dedicated line to APS’s Cholla Power Plant…the preferred delivery point for SRP’s power. Without further upgrades the line can take at least 25 MW of additional electricity to Cholla. The transmission agreement is already in place.
 
•
 APS has confirmed that the White Mountain communities of Showlow, Pinetop, Lakeside, Heber, Snowflake, etc. all use this feeder line and it is overloaded from Cholla to the White Mountain area. By placing a generating source at Abitibi, this bottleneck is relieved for about 5 years and APS is greatly benefited. It is conceivable that much more power could be generated and delivered from this site due to the growth in the local market.
 
•
 Enough paper sludge to power a 6 MW power plant annually with no other feedstock on a go forward basis without touching the 720,000 tons in a landfill today. The landfill will also serve as a place to dump ash from the biomass boilers.
 
•
 Natural Gas is already available to the site for startup and if needed for drying feedstock, etc.
 
•
 Abitibi’s 75-person dedicated and experienced power plant team will also run our power plant.
 
•
 State-of-the-art control room and monitoring equipment allows the Mill to more closely monitor power quality.
 
•
 Up-time guarantee will exceed the SRP and APS PPA levels of compliance of 90%.
 
•
 Land is available with plenty of space to work including a fire protected chip yard that was previously used for 35 years as the location to store chips.
 
•
 ADEQ certified engineers at Abitibi will test air quality for compliance 24X7.
 
•
 Boiler feed water supply is available with treatment for the highest pressure boilers.
 
•
 Abitibi has company-owned rail service (Apache Railway), trucking contracts with Swift Trucking, truck traffic control, scaling facilities and personnel, security, maintenance (certified power plant mechanics, welders, etc.), spare parts warehousing, fire suppression teams, human resources, accounting, office space, management, abandoned chip yard and associated assets, etc.
 
For more information about Renegy, LLC Click Here.
 
For a fact sheet about Snowflake White Mountain Power, Click Here.
 
     
     
 
 
 
For SWMP Fact Sheet: Click Here
 
 
Slide Show of Plant Construction: Click Here
  
 
Snowflake White Mountain Power Biomass Plant Makes Headlines
  
 
 
Energy Services Bulletin Discusses
SWMP Project (Read More)
  
 
 
 
Arizona Department of Commerce Authorized $39.25 Million in Bonds (Read More)
  
 
 
 

Navajo County and City of Show Low
Authorize SWMP Bonds (Read More)

  
 
 
 

SRP Buys Biomass Power
from SWMP (Read More)

  
 
 
 
SWMP Closes Financing (Read More)
  
 
 
 
Early Support for USDA and
Environmental Groups (Read More)
 
     
 
Important Documents
 
 
 
 
Babcock nd Wilcox Boiler Information
and Schematic (See Full Document)
 
 
 
 
Biomass Industry News
  
     
 

Experts Ponder Future of Biomass:
Power Magazine - May 2007

  
  5/07 - Experts discuss important trends and success factors for the biomass industry.
(See full article) 		 
 
 
 

Four Major States Order
 Increased Purchase of Bio Fuels

  
  11/05 - Governors in New York, Texas, Wisconsin and Minnesota order state agencies to save energy and increase their purchase and use of bio-fuels. (See full article)  
 
 
 
$200 Million In Loan Guarantees Set
Aside For Biomass Energy Projects
  
 

7/05 - The USDA's Rural Development Renewable Energy Program decides to set aside $200 million in loan guarantees for biomass energy projects. (See full article)

  
     
 
Biomass Educational Resources
  
   
What is biomass and how is it used as an energy resource? To find out more, Click Here