EQTEC partnership to convert forest residues into electricity

EQTEC has joined forces with Phoenix Energy, the North Fork Community Development Council and Carbonfuture to convert forest residues into renewable electricity in California.

The partnership will see the companies help Sierra Nevada forests and their communities remove carbon from the atmosphere and reduce wildfire risk, as well we generating renewable energy and creating new jobs.

North Fork Community Power will soon commission and utilise EQTEC’s Advanced Gasification Technology to convert forest stewardship residues into renewable electricity, heat and biochar – a solid carbon by-product that can be used in agriculture and water filtration.

The project, located on the site of an abandoned sawmill from the 1990s, is aligned with state and international net-zero targets and supports circular economy principles. The initiative has been rewarded with carbon removal credits by Carbonfuture through its platform and marketplace. This is the first forest biomass plant in California to join the scheme.

“I’m very pleased that our partnership in North Fork is now even more compelling by working with Carbonfuture,” said David Palumbo, CEO of EQTEC.

“Once operational, the plant at North Fork will service the local community by demonstrating a better way to use forestry waste that would otherwise pose a fire risk and to both produce biochar for watershed protection, carbon sequestration and soil enrichment, as well as use the syngas produced from the wood as a fuel to produce electricity.”

With the help of EQTEC’s Advanced Gasification Technology, the process does not involve burning or combusting the wood. The waste wood is transformed through EQTEC’s patented process, reduced, and left in solid form as pure carbon as it is converted into a hydrogen-rich syngas.

The project will generate 2 MWe of renewable electricity and biochar. Once produced, biochar is sold mostly to farms in California’s Central Valley to improve water efficiency, nutrient conservation, beneficial microbial composition, and overall quality of stable organic matter. The produced biochar will help to sequester 20,000 tons of Co2e over the next five years.

Gregory Stangl, Phoenix Energy’s CEO, commented: “This project is so impactful because it provides California with carbon negative, 24/7 renewable power, created from a unique sustainable waste-to-energy process and, at the same time, it reduces catastrophic wildfire risk and returns lost jobs to a struggling Sierra Nevada community.”