CALIFORNIA: San Diego Gas & Electric Adds Renewable Energy via Biomass

Kudos to Bull Moose Energy LLP, a Woman Business Enterprise developing energy sources for the renewable energy marketplace. Not because it is a woman-owned business but because it is very difficult for any company to get permits to establish waste-to-energy conversion technology (CT) facilities in California. This is due, in large measure, to the contentiousness of the regulations, permitting, and diversion credit issue within the California Assembly Natural Resources Committee.

The company, based in San Diego, is currently developing projects throughout the country including the Southern San Diego Biomass Energy Facility. They just announced a CT facility that has been contracted with San Diego Gas & Electric. The press release is below:

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SDG&E Adds 20 MW of Renewable Energy via Biomass

SAN DIEGO, June 1, 2006 – San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) today announced that it has contracted to purchase 20 megawatts (MW) of biomass electricity from Bull Moose Energy LLC (BME), beginning in 2008.

“This contract demonstrates SDG&E’s continuing drive to expand its portfolio of renewable resources such as wind, solar and biomass,” said Terry Farrelly, vice president of electric and gas procurement for SDG&E. “We have pledged to supply 20 percent of our customers’ energy needs from renewable resources by 2010.”

The Bull Moose Energy facility, expected to be located in the southern area of San Diego County, will gasify green waste, such as tree trimmings, to generate electricity. The facility is a clean burning system and is expected to divert several hundred tons of waste per day away from county landfills. This will be the first biomass facility announced in California since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the recent executive order requiring that 20 percent of the renewable energy purchased by public utilities in California be generated by biomass.

“With the recent improvements in technology, biomass has become one of the cleanest, most low-impact ways to generate electricity,” said Amanda Martinez, Bull Moose Energy president. “The habit of using limited landfill space to discard still-useful byproducts of our everyday life must become a thing of the past. The contract between BME and SDG&E allows San Diego to become a part of the clean biomass energy movement.”

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