A Vancouver company has been awarded a contract to build a biogas heating system for the University of Montana’s Missoula campus.
Nexterra Systems Corp. announced today that it will help build the university a new $16 million heating system that uses wood waste, which will be turned into syngas and burned to create heat.
Nexterra will build the system that turns biomass into syngas, and Seattle-based McKinstry Essention Ltd. will build the heating plant. Nexterra’s share in the project is in the $4 to $6 million range, a company spokesperson told Business in Vancouver.
The system, which will be fed using locally sourced wood waste, will result in energy cost savings estimated at $1 million a year.
The University of Montana is just the latest university to contract Nexterra to provide alternative energy. In March, the University of Northern B.C. unveiled a Nexterra biomass gasification project.
“This is our fourth university project and it represents a significant milestone as we expand into the higher educational market across North America,” said Nexterra president and CEO Jonathan Rhone.
“Biomass gasification is ideally suited to universities and colleges as a clean, cost effective way of lowering fuel costs and greenhouse gas emissions by converting central heating plants from fossil fuels to renewable fuels.”
The Nexterra system turns wood waste into syngas (synthetic gas), which burns at half the density of natural gas and burns more cleanly. And since it is created from either a renewable resource (wood waste) or even municipal waste, it is considered a form of green energy.
Nelson Bennett
Twitter: nbennett_biv