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In 24 months, a 50-foot pile of wood chips will be waiting to be carried by conveyor belt into a burner and made into electricity. Workers recently were building the foundation for Gainesville's new $500 million biomass plant on the spot where that wood chip pile will sit.

Roughly 200 workers have been toiling in recent weeks to lay the groundwork for the 100-megawatt Gainesville Renewable Energy Center, converting schematics and blueprints into a tangible project, with foremen, cranes and yard after yard of rebar.

But while the work continues full bore to have the plant built by 2013, questions remain about how much it's going to cost Gainesville Regional Utilities' 93,000 ratepayers.
A private company is building and will own the plant, but biomass fuel — at least for the next few years — is more expensive than alternatives such as coal and natural gas, driving up the fuel cost GRU will pass on to electric customers.

Exactly how much more GRU customers will have to pay has been the subject of heated debate dating back to when the need for the plant first was suggested in late 2003. But the utility now says that in two weeks, it will offer more answers to these lingering questions.


Estimates questioned

Millions of dollars' worth of work already has been completed at the plant, located next to the Deerhaven generating station on U.S. 441 between Gainesville and Alachua. Critics, however, maintain that the project isn't a "done deal" until the first watt is produced, at which point GRU will be obligated to start buying biomass power.

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