Sustainable Energy and Services

Solar and Wind Are Not Alone When It Comes To Green Energy

Although solar and wind power are currently two of the better-known sources of green power, there are other technologies available for which ConEdison Solutions has the expertise to guide you on your way to a greener facility. One example is biomass, and a specific application is the biomass boiler. Biomass boilers work by consuming organic material to generate heat. Pulp and paper mills have burned woodchips for centuries, but over the past 20 years these types of boilers have become very efficient, clean sources of heat.

Currently, ConEdison Solutions is installing the first wood chip-burning biomass boilers in the State of Rhode Island at the Foster-Glocester School District. These high-efficiency, computer-controlled boilers burn local woodchips as their fuel, thereby saving over 80% of the cost of heating with fuel oils, the schools only alternative. The chips, produced as a by-product of local lumber mills, otherwise would have gone to landfills to decompose or been trucked away for other uses, and therefore the school’s heating system will have no net impact on global warming (no net increase in greenhouse gases). As the need becomes greater for our country to become more energy-efficient and less reliant on fuel oil, the ability to implement new and/or improved technologies will become greater. The biomass boiler is just one way that ConEdison Solutions is helping facilities achieve energy efficiency on our way to a greener environment.