Stored Solar seeks 'co-hosts' on its Jonesboro site
Stored Solar LLC is seeking other businesses, or "co-hosts," to locate on its 140‑acre property at its Jonesboro biomass energy plant.
The Quoddy Tides reported the goal is to attract businesses that would purchase the biomass energy plant’s byproducts, such as heat, while receiving cheaper power. Stored Solar purchased the Covanta plants in Jonesboro and West Enfield in 2016.
The co-hosts would purchase byproducts like heat and also benefit from lower electricity costs, the Quoddy Tides reported. At Stored Solar’s West Enfield site, a shrimp farm has plans to set up operations. The tenants would help defray the cost of running the biomass plants and make them more competitive.
"We can't make money competing with natural gas in a stand‑alone plant," Bill Harrington, U.S. director of Capergy, the French parent company of Stored Solar, said at a Nov. 20 public meeting. Stored Solar owner Fahim Samaha said the company is looking for ways to market other byproducts as well, such as carbon dioxide.
Jonesboro, which is in Washington County, is about 80 miles, or an hour and 40 minutes, east of Bangor on U.S. Route 1, while West Enfield is 36 miles north of Bangor, or about 50 minutes by car.
Harrington said the company plans to fire up the Jonesboro plant again in a couple of weeks and generate power through the winter, with a goal of operating year-round. Stored Solar representatives said the firm will be adding to its staff of about 60 people.
Citing lack of feedstock and a boiler leak that needed to be repaired, Stored Solar shut down the Jonesboro plant in April. The company also has been beset by claims made by loggers of not getting paid, with the Quoddy Tides reporting in September that at least three lawsuits had been filed against the company.
When Covanta Energy shut down the plants in 2016, 44 jobs were lost, as well as important markets for low-grade wood and waste wood left over from pulp and paper manufacturing and sawmills.
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