By Michael Futch, The Fayetteville Observer
CLINTON – Michigan-based NOVI Energy is moving forward with plans to build two anaerobic digester power plants in Sampson County after county commissioners approved incentives for the facilities.
The proposed plants would bring at least 36 jobs to the county, according to John Swope, the executive director of the Sampson County Economic Development Commission.
An anaerobic digester system converts manure methane into electricity.
“We look forward to having the plants up and running,” Swope said. “We believe they’re going to be pretty benign. They’ll be a great fit for our region in North Carolina.”
On Monday night, the Sampson County Board of Commissioners OK’d by successive 4-1 votes an offer of performance-based business incentive payments to NOVI Carolina I and II LLC over five years. The electric utility company, which is headquartered in the Detroit area, would receive an overall $522,348 per plant, based on the incentives package.
Swope said the project means good jobs for Sampson County.
“A number of good jobs,” he said. “Each plant would mean 18 new jobs. Maybe more, at an average salary of $38,000 a year. It’s a very nice taxable investment for Sampson. A $25 million investment per plant, and it could be as high as $30 million per plant.”
NOVI Energy will provide the taxable investment of $25 million and tax revenues of about $1.7 million over the five-year stretch.
Anand Gangadharan, the owner and president of the business, cited Sampson as a good fit for the company’s plans. “In North Carolina,” he said, “Sampson is a strong agricultural community and there’s a lot of feedstock swine waste for our processing needs.”
The plants would be among NOVI Energy’s first to use all swine waste.
The plants would take in organic material, in this case, biodegradable agricultural waste, to produce methane gas used to generate electricity by power engines, Swope said. The company, he said, plans to contract with area hog farms for their waste.
The majority of the hog industry in North Carolina is in the southeastern region. Sampson County ranked No. 2 nationally among counties with $518.4 million in hog and pig sales four years ago, based on the 2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture. Duplin County was first with $614 million.
The Sampson County facilities, expected to begin operations by late 2017 or early 2018, would produce 4 to 5 megawatts of renewable electric energy that would be for sale on the electric grid system.
“They have power purchase agreements with Duke Energy for those plants,” Swope said.
NOVI Energy was established in 2002.
Two years ago, the company failed in a request to build one anaerobic digester power plant in Sampson. Swope attributed this unsuccessful attempt to “the concern of citizens … The proximity of the plant. Their questions of the plant itself. They just were concerned about the impact it may have on their neighborhood.”
That facility would have been built on a 40-acre site in the Sampson Southeast Business Center in Clinton.
This time around, Swope said, there was no opposition from county residents.
The board voted 4-1 in favor of approving incentives on each plant, with Commissioner Albert Kirby casting the lone dissenting vote on each request. Kirby could not be reached for comment.
As proposed, the plants will be built roughly 20 miles apart. One will operate from an approximately 80-acre tract in the southern area of the county, on the Sampson-Bladen County line. The location is south of what’s known as the Tomahawk community.
“There are no neighbors within close proximity,” Swope said. “It’s very isolated. Rural.”
The second facility, he said, is planned for about 40 acres in the southeast part of Clinton in an industrial area identified for industrial development and zoned for heavy industry.
“We are hoping for a successful experience in North Carolina,” Gangadharan said.