News Releases - OCTOBER 23, 2006

SIMPSON TIMBER COMPANY CUTS COST FOR ELECTRICITY

By John Dodge, The Olympian

SHELTON, WA: Conveyor system to save about 3 million kilowatt-hours per year.

Simpson Timber Co. and Mason County Public Utility District 3 have just completed the biggest energy conservation project ever on the Shelton waterfront.

A new wood chip transport system at Simpson's new planer mill is expected to save about 3 million kilowatt-hours of power per year.

That's enough electricity to meet the annual energy needs of 240 residential customers in Shelton, or about 0.5 percent of the utility's total annual energy load, utility power supply manager Jay Himlie said.

"It's a huge chunk of power," utility spokesman Joel Myer said.

By conserving that energy, it stretches out the life of the utility's existing power supply, which means the utility doesn't have to go out and acquire expensive new power sources to meet that three megawatts of energy demand, Myer said.

The $800,000 conveyor system was paid for in part through a $365,000 energy conservation grant from the Bonneville Power Administration, the nonprofit federal power marketing agency that markets about 40 percent of the electricity consumed in the Northwest from 31 federal dams and one nuclear plant.

Mason County PUD 3 buys most of its electricity from Bonneville.

"When utilities and consumers invest in energy-efficiency measures, not only does it help the bottom line, but it allows the Northwest to better utilize the electricity generation and transmission resources we have," said Mike Weedall, vice president of energy efficiency at BPA.

Simpson invested $425,000 in the conveyor system as part of its $20 million planer mill expansion on the Shelton waterfront.

The company should recoup that investment in lower energy bills in a little more than three years, company spokeswoman Bev Holland said.

"The amount we save on energy allows us to expand the scope of the project and assure that our mills remain competitive," said Mike Durga, general manager of Simpson Timber Co. - Northwest Operations.

The old wood chip conveyor system relied on energy-guzzling motors that blew the chips into barges for transport to Tacoma.

"It was an energy hog," Myer said of the old system.

The new system relies on an enclosed conveyor belt operated by smaller, energy-efficient motors that empties the wood chips in trucks for transport.