Greenville voters will once again be given an opportunity to vote on the project that is being developed to update the mechanical heating and ventilation systems in Greenville High School and Gymnasium and to take receipt of a $750,000 federal matching grant (ARRA) that is earmarked to help pay for the installation of a state-of-the-art wood biomass heating plant to serve both the High School and the Gym.  This type of system has been installed at numerous other K-12 schools in Maine with excellent results; including Leavitt Area High School, Dexter High School, Mt. View High School, Caribou High School, Poland High School, Lake Region High School and Falmouth High School to name several.  Nearly a dozen additional plants will be coming on line in 2011 and 2012 in Maine.

The financial analysis which was presented at the recent public meeting on this warrant article indicates that the capital improvements required for these two facilities to bring the heating and ventilation systems up to current code requirements and modern standards and to improve the building efficiency and the indoor air quality will cost just over 1 million dollars. This is in-line with other paid engineering studies that the school department has had in recent years. The wood biomass plant that is being planned is expected to cost approximately 1.5 million dollars and will offset 95% of the fuel oil usage in these buildings with locally-sourced wood chips.

The historical market price for wood chips is approximately 25% the cost of oil for the equivalent heat output.  The resulting savings associated with the fuel switch alone will exceed $90,000 in the first year that the new plant is in operation. There are a number of reasons why this is an excellent opportunity and the right time for Greenville to move forward with the upgrade and energy retrofit of these facilities.  One advantage is the excellent interest rate of .75% that the school has obtained to finance the project – a tremendously low rate.  Additionally, the advantage offered by the $750,000 ARRA grant (that Greenville competed for and was awarded in 2010) combined with the savings afforded by the switch to renewable wood chips as the primary fuel source will allow the combined $2.5 million dollar project to be budget-neutral over the 15 year anticipated financing period.

To put it another way, the projected savings associated with the efficiency improvements and the switch to a renewable and locally-sourced wood-chip fuel supply will pay for both the building heating and ventilation upgrades and the wood-biomass project.  The life expectancy of the wood-biomass plant is anticipated to be at least 30 years which will allow Greenville to enjoy the energy and fuel-switch savings for many years after the project has paid for itself.
This is an excellent opportunity for Greenville to make this badly needed investment in our schools and in the future of our children and our community, while at the same time reducing our future budget risk caused by sky-high and volatile fuel oil prices, promoting local long-term jobs, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, and providing an improved learning environment for our students and teachers.

I strongly encourage you to come out and Vote in favor of Warrant Article 2 on June 21!!!

Pete Johnson
PO Box 697
Greenville, ME 04441

Phone:  695-2019

 

 

I am attaching a link to the EIA site that gives some insight as to historical distillate fuel oil prices and recent trends. 
 
http://38.96.246.204/emeu/steo/pub/contents.html
 
You will see that those trends for the last 3 years have been significantly higher than the escalation factor that we are using in the model.
 
The supply of crude oil is not increasing; World-Wide demand is increasing; Prices will continue to increase following the simple laws of economics – supply and demand.
 
There will be some who do not want to move forward with any project to bring the Greenville schools up to a reasonable and current standard for efficiency and indoor air quality.
 
I will say this; if you do only the capital improvements; without a switch to wood chips as your primary fuel source; the community will have significantly more budgetary risk than installing a wood-biomass heating plant.
 
Look at it another way; You need to improve the mechanical systems in GHS – a fact well established by several independent studies.
 
The wood biomass plant, if it was a stand alone project priced at 1.5 million dollars; with a 750K federal grant would pay for itself very quickly – less than 7 years. 
 
What we are suggesting is that the savings associated with the wood biomass plant – and the switch to a fuel source that is 23% the cost of No. 2 oil; will help finance the needed improvements in the high school thus reducing the financial burden and future risk to the community.