According to the state, the companies were selected after a competitive bidding process. Governor Jim Doyle’s administration will soon begin negotiations on a contract.
Boldt, based in Wisconsin, offers construction, consulting and maintenance services. AMEC is a leading environmental and engineering consultancy organisation.
The University of Wisconsin Charter Street Heating Plant now burns 108,000 tons of coal a year to provide steam and heating for campus buildings. Its four boilers can produce almost 10 megawatts.
Plans call for conversion of one boiler to exclusively burn up to 250,000 tons of biomass a year including agricultural residues, switchgrass pellets, wood chips and wood waste.
The other three units will be revamped to burn natural gas with one able to co-fire with biomass.
Doyle’s office says carbon dioxide emissions will sharply decline once the upgrade are done, although it gave no figures.
Doyle first announced the plant conversion in August 2008 as part of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club claiming it violated air pollution laws.
Earlier this year Boldt won a contract to provide all construction services for We Energies’s proposed $255m, 50MW biomass cogeneration plant at the Domtar paper mill in Wisconsin.
We Energies, an electric utility based in Milwaukee, will supply the plant with forest residue, clean wood waste and wood shavings. Domtar, based in Montreal, Canada, says the project will slash its dependence on fossil fuels for papermaking operations.
Wisconsin has set a 10% renewable portfolio standard for electric utilities by 2015.
