Southern Power starts on 100 MW Texas biomass plant

Atlanta-based Southern Power said today it broke ground on a biomass plant in Sacul, Texas.

Southern Power, which builds, manages and owns wholesale generation assets, acquired the 100 megawatt project, called the Nacogdoches Generating Facility, from American Renewables last month. The plant is expected to be on-line in the summer of 2012.

The facility’s power is planned to benefit community-owned electric utility Austin Energy under a 20-year agreement. The output is expected to help the city of Austin meet a 30 percent renewable energy target by 2020.

About 300 construction jobs and 40 permanent jobs are expected to be created with the plant, which is projected to cost $475 million to $500 million.

The plant, being constructed on 165 acres, is to be fueled with biomass materials, including forest residue from the surrounding area, wood processing residues and clean municipal wood waste. It is expected to require about 1 million tons of fuel a year, obtained from a 75-mile radius around the project site.

It’s one of two biomass plants from Southern Power’s parent company, U.S. southeast electric utility Southern Co. (NYSE:SO). In March, the Georgia Public Service Commission approved Southern Co.-subsidiary Georgia Power's application to convert a 96 MW plant near Albany, Ga., to biomass.

The parent company is also considering converting five additional coal plants to biomass.

Southern Co. said it develops and deploys smart and clean technologies, including increasing energy efficiency, nuclear power, clean coal and renewables. It has spent about $6.3 billion in environmental controls and expects to spend an additional $3.1 billion through 2011 to further reduce emissions.

In June, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based home control company 4Home said its technology was getting traction from major electric utilities including Southern Co. (see 4Home, Sensus unveil partnership details).

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