Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 30, 1993 TAG: 9303300069
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: AMELIA LENGTH: Medium
Yet William Scott revels in the atmosphere. His three-story, tin-sided creation is, after all, a continuation of a family heritage and a monument to the skills of the American backyard mechanic.
"The first power plant I ever saw was the one I built," said Scott, 29.
The plant can produce 1 megawatt of electricity, which Scott sells to Virginia Power. A megawatt is enough electricity to power 250 homes. Scott Energy Inc.'s two plants at Amelia Lumber Co. burn sawdust from the sawmill and have the capacity to produce 2.6 megawatts.
Scott Energy is one of 28 small operations providing Virginia Power with electricity. The plants range from high-tech gas-fired turbines to hydroelectric plants built at the turn of the century.
Jeffrey L. Jones, Virginia Power's director of capacity contracts, said the small plants produced 37 megawatts of Virginia Power's 17,000 megawatts this winter. In Western Virginia, Richmond-based Virginia Power sells electricity in portions of Alleghany, Bath, Bedford, Botetourt and Rockbridge counties.
The utility is required to buy electricity from the small power plants, said Virginia Power spokesman William Byrd.
The Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act passed by Congress in 1978 encourages the use of renewable resources to produce power, said Rob Walker Jr., president of Consolidated Hydro Southeast Inc. Consolidated's parent company owns 80 small hydro plants across the country.
"Until the act was passed, the utilities had a monopoly on the power supply. All of these small plants were abandoned because they had no market for their power. Now the utilities are required to buy the power at their avoided costs," Walker said.
Avoided costs are the amount it would have cost the utility to produce the power.
The cost to ratepayers for power from small plants must not be more than if Virginia Power had built the same capacity, said Ken Schrad, spokesman for the State Corporation Commission.
Appalachian Power Co. has not bought electricity from small plants because its own cost of generation is low. If a small plant had a lower avoided cost than Apco, the law would require the utility to buy its power. But that hasn't happened, said Dick Burton, public affairs director for Apco.
Scott said he got into the power business with the encouragement of his father, L.O. Scott, who owns Amelia Lumber. He said his grandfather operated a small power plant and his father also wanted to produce electricity.
Scott Power built its first plant in 1985 and its second in 1990.
The sawdust is heated in a low-oxygen chamber to extract flammable gases, which are sucked through a 4-foot diameter pipe, mixed with oxygen and ignited. The resulting 16-foot-long flame is drawn into the boiler.
Steam from the boiler is fed through a turbine, which produces the electricity. The steam is cooled back into water and re-fed into the boiler to restart the process. Heat from the cooling steam is used to dry Amelia's lumber.
Scott said the operation moves Amelia Lumber that much closer to its goal. "We don't want anything to leave this property as waste. We want to use every bit of wood product for something," he said.
The small plants, which operate 24 hours a day, five days a week, are required to meet federal and state environmental standards.
Scott has invested $6 million in the operation and hopes to turn a profit after the loans are paid off. "It's a long-term investment. Boilers and turbines are expensive, but they are made to last a long time."
Staff writer George Kegley contributed to this story.
by CNB