Dominion’s
Pittsylvania Power Station, an 80-megawatt facility in Hurt, Va., is
one of the largest biomass power stations on the East Coast. Dominion
purchased Pittsylvania Power Station in 2004.
Pittsylvania’s sole source for producing
electricity is from burning wood chips. More than
90 percent of its supply is waste wood that would otherwise be dumped into
landfills or inefficiently burned.
At Pittsylvania, leftovers from sawmills,
logging operations and paper mills are put to good use providing electricity.
The station supplies enough electricity to power about 20,000 houses.
Two enormous,
aromatic piles of wood chips — each about the
size of a four-story building — are among the first things noticed
by visitors arriving at the station.
An estimated 3,300 tons of waste
wood is unloaded each day at Pittsylvania, which translates to about
150 truckloads.
High-lifts load the wood chips onto a system of conveyer
belts that eventually lead to three stoker boilers that burn the wood. Just
as with coal-fired power stations, steam is generated to power the turbines
that produce electricity. Fly ash and bottom ash produced at the station
are reused as fertilizer at local farms and as landfill cover.
Similar to
other renewable stations, the effects of Pittsylvania’s emissions
are more environmentally friendly because the station produces very low levels
of sulfur dioxide. Another key advantage of wood fuel is that it is "carbon
neutral," meaning it does not result in any net addition of greenhouse
gases to the atmosphere. Although biomass burned as a fuel emits carbon dioxide,
scientists consider the process to be "carbon neutral" because an
equal amount of carbon is released into the atmosphere that would have been
returned to it when the trees decayed as part of their natural life cycle.
The Pittsylvania station is part of Dominion’s
commitment to reaching the Virginia target of 12 percent of renewable generation
by 2022.
Altavista Power
Station
Dominion's Altavista Power
Station uses biomass co-fired with coal.
Located in Altavista, Va., this
station produces 63 megawatts, which powers about 15,750 houses.
