CESA SLICE Award Winner Webinar: NH PUC – Woody Biomass Heating

This webinar highlighted details of one of the 2012 State Leadership in Clean Energy Award winning programs, the New Hampshire PUC’s Residential Wood-Pellet Boiler Rebate Program, and focused on woody biomass heating technologies, and environmental impacts.

This first-in-the-nation rebate program for residential bulk-delivery wood-pellet furnaces and boilers was a joint effort of the state’s Public Utilities Commission and Office of Energy and Planning. It was designed to stimulate a new market for whole-house wood-pellet heating systems and, as importantly, to bolster the infrastructure for bulk delivery of wood pellets. With an initial budget of $500,000, the program subsidized installation of 100 whole-house biomass heating systems, which almost always substituted for fuel oil systems. Approximately 30 installers participated in the program.

Barbara Bernstein of NH PUC presented details and lessons learned from the New Hampshire Pellet Heating Program. She was joined by Ellen Burkhard of NYSERDA, who presented results from a recent NYSERDA project on woody biomass air emissions measurement. In addition, Ellen Burkhard of NYSERDA, presented information from her program on Residential Wood Boiler Technologies, Emissions Measurements, and Observations of Wood Smoke in Rural and Urban Communities in New York State.