Strong, Kingfield schools to get pellet boilers

PHILLIPS — Elementary schools in Strong and Kingfield will receive pellet-burning boilers after the school district receives more than $1 million from a United States Department of Agriculture grant.

Quenten Clark, director of Regional School Unit 58, said the new systems should be online by the end of December.

The new installations will put three of the district's five schools on pellet-generated heat, with an annual savings of 80,000 gallons of oil, he said. He's interested in installing a pellet boiler at the Phillips Elementary School and possibly the Stratton Elementary School, he said.

Clark said the supply line for the pellets is shorter, more reliable, and will keep the money spent on energy in the local economy. He said the systems are carbon-neutral because carbon dioxide generated by the boilers will be reabsorbed when the schools are not operating during the summer.

"It all evolved basically from us having a problem and trying to find a solution and thinking outside the box," he said.

Clark said the district began looking into possible alternatives to their oil-burning boilers a few years ago, when their supplier at the time went bankrupt. He said the district lost 40,000 gallons of oil as a result.

"We went through a three-week period where we couldn't get any oil at all," he said.

Clark said the incident made him realize that the chain of supply for oil is vulnerable to setbacks, and that a loss of heat in the schools would force them to shut down operations. He said rising fuel costs also contributed to the district's worries.

The school system's first work with alternate energy was the installation of a corn-burning furnace at the bus garage. The furnace now uses wood pellets.

Last year, a pellet-burning boiler was shipped from Austria and installed at Mt. Abram High School in Strong.

Laura Colban, founder of Skanden Energy, said she approached RSU 58 in January 2008 with the proposal of putting in more pellet-burning furnaces at other schools. When Clark replied that they would do so if they had the funding, Colban worked to secure a grant from the USDA. Originally for $760,000, the amount of the grant later rose to $1.08 million.

Colban said Gov. John Baldacci, Maine's congressional delegation and others were supportive of the project.

"I don't know if we would have gotten the grant if we didn't have the political support," she said.

Colban founded the company in 2008. While based in San Diego, Calif., it is in the process of moving operations to Maine, where a Sumner-based supervisor is employed. Colban said Skanden will provide the equipment for the job and coordinate with local subcontractors.

She said fluctuations in the price of oil make a direct analysis of savings difficult. However, she said the new boilers were projected to save the district half of its heating costs when they were first proposed, and are now estimated to result in a savings of one-third of the costs.

Two boiler houses are currently being constructed outside the schools, and the boilers will be shipped from Denmark for installation. Colban said 48-ton capacity silos will also be installed at the schools for pellet storage.

The oil boilers will be retained as a backup system.

mlangeveld@sunjournal.com