After a six-year battle over Bio Energy's operations of its Hopkinton power plant, the company wants to tear the plant down and begin anew. In a proposal announced yesterday, Bio Energy said it hopes to build a new $60 million power plant on the same site.

The plant, which would burn clean wood chips, would be the second-largest biomass plant in the state, and the largest to burn only wood, company officials said.

The plan is still preliminary, and Bio Energy owner William Dell'Orfano said the first step will be to get the community on board. "If the town wants to work together, we'll go forward," he said. "We believe it's the highest and best use of the site and will probably generate the most revenue."

The plan has already drawn fire from two citizens groups that opposed Bio Energy in the past. "Towering smokestacks and boilers and billowing plumes of emissions are not consistent with the nature and character of our community and implicate serious issues associated with landowners' rights, health, safety and welfare," the board of REACH wrote in a letter to Hopkinton selectmen.

According to company and town officials, the plant would produce 30 to 34 megawatts of electricity - just less than three times as much as the current Bio Energy plant and about twice as much as the proposed new Concord Steam plant. The only bigger plant in the state is PSNH's Schiller Station in Portsmouth.

Physically, the new plant would be almost the same size as the current one, just more efficient, company officials said. The stack, now 157 feet, would be between 150 and 190 feet. The boiler would go from 60 feet to between 90 and 110 feet. Those changes are necessary to install the most efficient and least-polluting machinery, said Bio Energy spokesman Mark Dell'Orfano, the owner's son. The facility would require 300,000 to 360,000 tons of wood chips per year, and the wood storage pile would be about 50 feet high.

The plant would use "state-of-the-art" technology to meet or exceed state and federal standards for emissions and pollution control, the Dell'Orfanos said. An advanced generator and fuel boiler will help with pollution controls, and there will be continuous emissions monitoring, William Dell'Orfano said. According to Bio Energy, the plant would take three to four years to get up and running. It would employ about 200 people during construction, and create 30 to 40 full-time positions afterward.

Bio Energy would try to negotiate a "payment in lieu of taxes" agreement with the town. A town consultant found that potential tax revenue could be anywhere from $300,000 to $1.3 million per year, according to the selectmen. William Dell'Orfano said the details would be negotiated. But, he said, paying taxes on the full $60 million to $70 million value of the building "may not be economical."

The REACH statement criticized Bio Energy for seeking to pay just $300,000 in taxes, but Bio Energy officials said they only used that number as an example. On its old plant, Bio Energy paid $150,000 a year to the town and an additional $50,000 utility tax.

The new plan was made possible by recent initiatives in the state legislature meant to stimulate renewable energy projects. Gov. John Lynch has pledged to make 25 percent of the state's total energy use come from renewable sources by 2025, and last year the state enacted new standards for emissions, called Renewable Portfolio Standards. The new law requires utilities to use a percentage of renewable energy and provides incentives for companies to produce electricity from renewable sources.

XGenesys, a company also owned by William Dell'Orfano, tried to build a plant in Groveton that would be a combined wood-burning power plant, ethanol production plant and steam supplier. But those plans are on hold indefinitely due to transmission issues in the North Country. (next page »)