It’s Pipin’ Hot! Mt. Bachelor’s New Wood Fuel Energy Facility Opened Thursday

Skiers and snowboarders warming themselves this season in the Mt. Bachelor’s West Village will have an extra reason to feel comfy cozy — the five buildings’ heat is sourced through wood salvaged locally from the Deschutes National Forest.

Mt. Bachelor officials cut the ribbon on its new Wood Fuel Energy Facility on Nov. 12. The building is located a short walk southeast from the main parking lot.

Mt. Bachelor now heats its West Village with its new Wood Fuel Energy Facility, located southeast of the main parking lot. Credit: Peter Madsen

That biomass consists of mix conifer wood chipped by contractors and is sourced from the Deschutes National Forest Restoration Thinning Project. A large commercial wood stove-like product — about the size of a Sprinter van standing on its grill — incinerates the wood chips at temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat travels to the various West Village buildings through underground, insulated piping.

The biomass facility is expected to reduce Mt. Bachelor’s annual propane use by more than 150,000 gallons, reducing estimated greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1,000 tons each year, according to Mt. Bachelor. By replacing trucked-in fossil fuels with a locally sourced renewable resource, the project will help reduce the resort’s environmental footprint while supporting forest restoration efforts.

Using this preexisting fuel source is an ecological win-win, says Andrew Haden, the president of Wisewood Energy, a Portland-based biomass company that contracted with Mt. Bachelor and Powdr Corp, the mountain resort’s parent company, to create the wood-burning facility. The arrangement offsets the widespread smoke that would otherwise result from these burns and can cause air-quality concerns throughout the Deschutes National Forest.

“When you drive up Century Drive and you see all those burning piles, we’re able to take those piles, chip them up and bring them up here,” Haden said.

Wood chips, salvaged from forest maintenance, reduces emissions from scattered burn piles and converts the biomass into heat, reducing Mt. Bachelor’s West Village propane usage by about 93%. Credit: Peter Madsen

Haden noted the wastefulness in trucking propane up mountain passes and through areas where “low-value biomass” — wood debris — is already piling up as a byproduct of forest management and often disposed in small, controlled burn piles. Now, those companies have an eager client in Mt. Bachelor’s Wood Fuel Energy Facility.

This forest biomass replaces propane as the heating source of the West Village, which consists of five buildings: the West Village Lodge, Mountain Gateway, Todd Lake Building, the Ski Patrol facility and the Bachelor Butte Administrative Building. Previously, 25 boilers and furnaces, some of which were installed in the 1980s and ‘90s, used propane to heat the buildings, Haden said.

In recent years, the West Village consumed as much as 200,000 gallons of propane annually, says Georgia Reid, the project development manager for Wisewood Energy. The new biomass facility reduces the village’s propane use by about 93%.

The West Village biomass facility cost a little more than $10 million, with Powdr and Mt. Bachelor contributing about 70% of the funding, with the final third being split about equally between the Forest Service and the Oregon Department of Energy, according to Haden.

“The biomass facility saves costs every year because propane is an expensive fuel in a volatile market,” Haden said, adding that propane typically costs between $25 to $30 per unit of heat (or, 1 million British Thermal Units). This woodchip biomass costs from $5 to $8 per unit of heat.

The biomass facility will pay for itself in about 10 to 15 years, Haden said.

“It’s a business decision, too,” Reid said.

Across the country, biomass accounts for 5% of total primary energy consumption in 2023, according to Global Bio Energy. In some instances, however, biomass facilities present challenges or ecological downsides, including the release of pollutants including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, according to the nonprofit.

Wisewood Energy President Andrew Haden demonstrates the high-tech instrumental panel that monitors the Sprinter van-sized oven that incinerates wood chips between 800 and 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Credit: Peter Madsen

Haden and Reid told the Source that their state-of-the-art controls ensure emissions meet strict air-quality standards.

Haden said Wisewood Energy is in talks with several other ski resorts that are interested in installing biomass facilities.

The Wisewood Energy president says he appreciates how the neck of the biomass industry works in tandem with Oregon’s timber heritage.

“[The biomass technology] mixes renewable energy, design and engineering work with blue-collar work,” Haden said. “We think it’s a neat technology because you’re doing something renewable, but you’re also helping guys who work in the woods with their businesses.”