April 15, 2008 — Before Renegy, the company that recently purchased former Sierra Pacific Industries biomass generator located in Susanville, puts the power plant back on line, the company will install a number of pollution control upgrades and modifications. On Tuesday, April 8, Scott Higginson, Renegy’s senior vice president, told the Lassen County Air Pollution Control Board, the company will not operate the plant unless it meets all federal, state and local regulations.

According to information Renegy gave to the board, planned upgrades and modifications to the boiler include:

•A new natural gas burner for start up, which will virtually eliminate particulate emissions during start up. This new system will greatly improve previous practices and did not exist when SPI owned the plant.

•Replace and install new piping to upgrade and control NOx emissions.

•Enhance the existing over-fire air system to improve boiler efficiency and control the concentration of exhaust gases. This system was not consistently used by SPI.

•Install any other state-of-the-art equipment appropriate for the facility.

Renegy plans upgrades and modifications to the plant’s electro-static precipitator system. The EPS system helps prevent particulate matter from escaping during the burning process.

Planned upgrades to the ESP system include:

•A complete overhaul, repair and upgrade of the existing ESP unit. This process will include the latest technology at each stage to meet today’s particulate emission standard and to operate at peak efficiency.

•Install an additional filtering stage (for a total of three) to ESP for additional emissions reduction over previous operations. This third ESP cell did not exist under previous ownership.

Planned exhaust stream measurement improvements include:

•Install an entirely new CEMS unit for continuous emission monitoring. This new system will be computerized and will provide instantaneous emissions readouts for monitoring and enforcement purposes. This level of monitoring equipment did not exist under previous ownership.

•Install new opacity monitoring unit for computerized measuring as opposed to older equipment and visual observation techniques employed in the past.

Other upgrades and improvements include major clean up of the site; refurbishing of all fuel conveyors, hoppers and boiler feed systems; rebuilding and reconditioning the entire turbine generator for improved performance and increased safety; upgrading controller systems and control room features; installing a new, non-asbestos cooling tower; installing a brand new reverse osmosis water system; refurbishing all substation transformers and switchgear; refurbishing all critical electrical element systems, wires controls, conduits and safety equipment; replacing the air compressor system; reconditioning the scale and the scale house; and, refurbishing the fire pump station.