Hoeven Working With Great River Energy To Expand Spiritwood Industrial Park

Press Release

Hoeven Working With Great River Energy To Expand Spiritwood Industrial Park

Gov. John Hoeven today announced he is working with Great River Energy to expand the Spiritwood Industrial Park near Jamestown. Hoeven is encouraging the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to provide a grant under the National Energy Technology Laboratory's recent Recovery Act program opportunity for Deployment of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Systems. The grant would serve to install an advanced steam distribution system to manufacturing facilities on the site as part of the overall CHP industrial park project. The GRE team of partners would provide a 90 percent cost share for the $377 million project, and is seeking $35.2 million from the DOE in matching funds.

Hoeven met Wednesday with GRE's Vice President for Business Development Greg Ridderbusch, and Manager of Business Development Al Christianson in support of the park's expansion and GRE's application.

"This is a project that fits squarely into Empower ND, our comprehensive, multi-resource energy plan," Hoeven said. "Empower seeks to partner energy producers across sectors, and here we have an energy utility, coal, agricultural biomass, and biofuels working in tandem to produce not just energy in new and innovative ways, but also jobs and opportunities for North Dakota citizens."

The enlarged complex would consist of Spiritwood Station, GRE's 99 megawatt combined heat and power plant, and three major production facilities: a large barley malting facility, which is already in place, as well as a biomass refinery and a biodiesel production facility, both of which are planned to be added to the complex. Program partners include GRE; Cargill Malt; the Jamestown Stutsman Development Corporation (JSDC), which is working to develop the biodiesel facility; and Otoka Energy Corp. and Inbicon A/S, who are working together to build the biomass refinery.

The park expansion will generate economic development and long-term economic benefits by supporting approximately 85 production jobs at Cargill and creating 136 long-term jobs at the other facilities. Construction of the steam distribution system and partner facilities could create nearly 2000 man-years of effort in manufacturing and construction jobs for our economy and community.

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