Community District Energy

Although biomass heating can work well for a single building, such as a school or office building, it is often much more cost-effective to build and use a system with enough capacity to supply heat to several or many buildings within a fairly dense district. This is known as community district heating, and it has been used successfully in many applications, especially in Canada and Europe.

In the U.S., for example, a biomass-fired district energy system heats the whole downtown of St. Paul, Minnesota, and central wood systems heat the state office complexes in Montpelier and Waterbury, Vermont. BERC has carried out a study of the feasibility of extending Montpelier's state-complex system to heat part or all of the neighboring downtown commercial area: See the Montpelier report for more.

Biomass district energy systems are highly reliable, both in fuel pricing and system stability. They can repay their investment on a predictable basis and continue to produce long-term cost savings. Density of the buildings to be served is a key factor in determining whether installing a biomass district energy system will be cost-effective.

One small biomass district system in which BERC has played a key role is in Darby, Montana - the first school wood heating system in the western states. With three buildings on the same public school campus - an elementary, middle, and high school - the Darby school board decided to build one wood-heat plant and extend piping from it to serve all three schools. BERC was project manager for the effort (See Project Portfolio). With biomass heating, the school system was able to cut in half its school heating and hot water bills.

For a community, biomass district energy is especially attractive because the fuel supply comes from local sources. Fuel dollars stay and circulate in the local economy instead of being exported out of the region, as happens with dollars spent on fossil fuels. Essentially, the community or project developer of a district system is creating a new utility, offering system and fuel-price stability. Users no longer need to own and maintain their own heating plants. Also, centralized district systems are very flexible in their capacity to accommodate changes in technology: these systems are highly expandable and adaptable.