Biomass & Wood Energy
Biomass plants burn chips and low-grade wood for power. They rarely buy standing timber directly, but they give loggers somewhere to sell material that has no sawlog value.
1 listing
Quick answer
There is 1 biomass & wood energy listed in North Carolina. Listings come from the North Carolina Forest Service's published register and each one shows the counties it covers and the species it handles. TimberClear has not vetted, verified or endorsed any of them.
Commissioned in 1990, this 50-megawatt biomass power plant is not a mill and does not buy sawtimber. It burns bark and sawdust from pulp, paper and lumber mills together with nonmarketable biomass from logging operations, which makes it one of the few outlets in eastern North Carolina for low-grade wood that has no other market. Owner NorthStar Clean Energy, a CMS Energy subsidiary, says the plant generates roughly 360,000 megawatt-hours a year, employs 30 people directly and supports close to 100 timber-industry jobs. It also burns up to 121,000 tons of poultry waste annually; Duke Energy, which buys the output under a long-term power purchase agreement, said in 2018 the plant was its largest North Carolina source of poultry renewable energy credits. Plant ash goes to local farmers in place of agricultural lime.
Questions landowners ask
How many biomass & wood energy are there in North Carolina?
1 are listed on TimberClear, sourced from the North Carolina Forest Service register.
How do I choose between them?
Start local and get more than one. A business based in your county knows the mills and the ground; one registered for all one hundred counties may be three hours away. Every listing here shows how far its office is from the county you are looking at, so "will travel" is never mistaken for "is local". TimberClear has not vetted, verified or endorsed anybody on this site.