“Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me,” Richard Farina, 1996 novel; The Doors, 1971
As pellet producers and heating equipment firms limp into the summer, there are numerous plans underway to improve the marketing of  “modern wood heat,” a phrase the industry has found to be more consumer-friendly than “biomass thermal.”

Optimism abounds. This spring’s well-attended Northeast Biomass Heating Conference & Expo in Vermont had an unofficial theme: “We all know that oil prices will go back up; we’ll be back selling.”

The Northern Forest Center, an excellent nonprofit dedicated to supporting the economies and citizens of Northern New England and upstate New York, recently drafted a “Modern Wood Heat Communications Plan,” for which it interviewed numerous pellet boiler owners and industry stakeholders across the region. The plan, noting that consumers understand that oil prices are volatile, suggests that pellet heating equipment be sold based on homeowner values, not price considerations. Buying local and environmental considerations top the values list.  The Northern Forest Center has put together a work group to move the plan forward. Vermont Solar’s marketing slogan, “Building Clean Energy and Local Jobs,” will serve as a model.

Marketing programs should also find assistance in the $130,000 USDA Wood Energy Assistance Team grant just received by the Maine Forest Service. Vermont, New York state, and New Hampshire have previously received similar funding. To assist with the implementation of these grants, the U.S. Forest Service’s regional office in New Hampshire just added a forest products utilization specialist position and filled the slot with the Maine Forest Service employee who wrote the Maine grant.

With its pellet boiler incentive (30 percent, up to $5,000) sparsely used this winter, Efficiency Maine’s trustees recently had the opportunity to reduce funding for the program. The board instead agreed that the program remains valid and should continue as planned.

Perhaps more important than any of these marketing programs is the realization (finally!) by Maine’s legislature that our state’s entire forestry sector is facing serious challenge, with thousands of jobs at stake. Three pulp and paper plants have closed recently, along with two biomass electric plants. The future of the remaining four biomass electric plants is in doubt, as result of changes in Massachusetts and Connecticut policies on renewable electricity credits. Using the phrase “an economic hurricane,” Maine Sen. Angus King organized a large meeting of forestry firms and federal agencies, with the intention of seeing how federal policies and programs might assist the industry.

Specifically important to our four pellet producers was a state legislative proposal, passed in the final days of the session, whereby the state will pay up to $13 million for two-year contracts of electricity generated from renewable fuels, presumably biomass. This measure is vital to maintaining the wood harvesting infrastructure that provides fiber not only to Maine’s biomass electricity generators, but also to our four pellet manufacturers, numerous papermakers, lumber mills, specialty wood products firms, and many other forest products enterprises. Forestry is Maine’s largest economic engine, along with tourism, and legislators are recognizing that their support is sometimes needed.   

Potentially, of even greater importance is a measure passed as part of the biomass electric package, creating a Maine Biomass Industry Study Commission. This commission, charged with studying the economic, environmental, and energy benefits of the biomass industry, is not limited to biomass electric. One of the 15 members just appointed by the speaker of the Maine House is Bob Linkletter, owner and operator of Maine Woods Pellet Co., and also a director of the Maine Pellet Fuels Association. Linkletter intends to direct some of the commission’s attention to thermal biomass. 

So, what we have now is a strong planning infrastructure. As I write this piece, I was interrupted by a phone call from a Vermont consumer asking where he could go to purchase Maine pellets. What we really need is thousands more such calls.


Author: Bill Bell
Executive Director, Maine Pellet Fuels Association
feedalliance@gwi.net
207-752-1392