Governor Ted Strickland recently visited the Wooster campus of Ohio State University's Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center to see a large biomass facility being developed there in conjunction with Cleveland-based quasar energy group. According to this article in Ohio Farmer, the 550,000-gallon anaerobic digester will be able to process 30,000 wet tons of organic waste annually with more than 750 kW of electrical generation capacity, or about one-third of the OARDC campus's energy needs. It is scheduled for completion in mid-April. Last year, the project received a $2 million grant from Ohio's Third Frontier Advanced Energy Program.

American Electric Power is searching for suppliers of sustainable biomass fuel to provide fuel for use at its Picway, Muskingum River and Conesville plants in Ohio. AEP is seeking proposals for spot deliveries of biomass by truck or rail beginning as early as April 2010 and extending through December 2010, and term deliveries of biomass for terms of three, five, 10 and 15 years beginning in 2011. The solicitation is part of AEP's attempt to comply with the requirements mandated in Ohio Senate Bill 221.

Applications pending as of February 2, 2010 with the Ohio Power Siting Board.
 

Here is the latest list of projects submitted to the PUCO for Renewable Energy Credits.

Applications filed as November 16, 2009.
 

On October 7, 2009, the US DOE announced that it will provide $750 million in credit subsidy funding to help accelerate the development of commercialized renewable energy projects under the Section 1705 Loan Guarantee program of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Department's plan is to utilize the new Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP) through which approved private sector lenders will underwrite loan guarantees for conventional renewable energy projects such as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and hydropower. For more detailed information on the program, see the US DOE's Loan Guarantee Program (http://www.lgprogram.energy.gov/) and Bricker & Eckler LLP's Green Strategies Bulletin Loan Guarantees for Commercial Renewable Energy Projects Announced.

Bricker & Eckler bulletin focusing on the recently released U.S. Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Solicitation Announcement for Eligible Renewable Energy, Renwable Energy Manufacturing, Transmission and Biofuel Projects.  Read the full bulletin here.

As of July 23, 2009, nine certification applications for biomass facilities have been filed at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio pursuant to the certification process established by the not-yet-effective rule, Ohio Administrative Code Rule 4901:1-40-04, which permits an alternative energy project to be certified as one that is eligible to produce Ohio Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).

One out-of-state wind application was filed for an existing Indiana facility, Fowler Ridge Wind Farm LLC, located in PJM territory, owned by Fowler I Holdings in Houston, Texas, with a name plate capacity of 301 MW. The distributed generation net metering facility has an interconnection agreement with Indiana Michigan Power Company.

There have also been two solar applications, one by Twenty-First Century Energy LLC, requested certification for a photovoltaic facility in Fairborn, Ohio with a nameplate capacity of .041 MW to be sold in a distributed generation setting involving a net metering agreement with Dayton Power and Light. The other facility, the Exelon-Epuron Solar Energy Center in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in PJM territory, is owned by TD Bank of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and has a name plate capacity of 3 MW that will provide distributed generation without net metering to PECO.

There are five biomass certification applications. The first, by Schmack BioMass OARDC, requested certification of its anaerobic digestion facility (with a nameplate capacity of .4 MW) as an Ohio renewable energy resource. The electricity produced will be supplied directly to buildings on its campus located in Cleveland, Ohio. The second, located in Shakopee, Minnesota, the Koda Energy facility, is owned by Trinity Carbon Management, LLC of Austin, Texas, has a nameplate capacity of nearly 24 MW and is located in MISO territory. The facility is interconnected with Northern States Power and provides distributed generation with both on-site use and wholesale sales.

Three separate limited liability companies which appear to be ultimately owned by Energy Developments, Inc., filed for landfill gas projects in Lowellville, Oberlin and Port Clinton, Ohio. The projects’ aggregated nameplate capacity of 35.1 MW with the output to be sold to AMP-Ohio in distributed generation settings involving American Transmission Systems and Oberlin Municipal Light and Power System. 

Wabash Valley Power Association, Inc., a rural electric co-operative, filed for Jay County Landfill Gas Facility, a solid waste facility, located in Portland, Indiana, in PJM territory, that has a nameplate capacity of 3.2 MW.