Wood Resource Recovery sued the Gainesville Renewable Energy Center for $5 million because it says the 100 MW biomass plant made it impossible to do business under its current contract due to breach of a long-term fuel supply contract.
Wood Resource Recovery says the relationship soured after the biomass operator secured regulatory and lender approvals for the plant, approvals it claims turned on Gainesville Renewable Energy Center having long-term commitments for a third of its fuel supply with Wood Resource Recovery. Under the contract, Wood Resource Recovery controlled a 27-county service area and was to provide from 264,000 to 277,000 dry tons of biomass to GREC each year.
“We invested millions of dollars to ramp up, created dozens of new jobs, and believed Gainesville Renewable Energy Center would honor the contract,” said Bill Gaston, president of Wood Resource Recovery. “It may be that GREC does not need as much fuel as originally projected,” said Gaston. “For whatever reason, they have come up with excuse after excuse to not accept our material.”
In 1985, the State of Florida mandated that vegetation no longer be dumped in landfills. Wood Resource Recovery began operations and over the next two decades, recycled millions of tons of vegetative debris around the country, some of it converted to boiler fuel to generate electricity. For this reason, Wood Resource Recovery was selected to supply the Gainesville Renewable Energy Center with a large amount of its boiler fuel.
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/wood-market-trends/woodworking-industry-news/production-woodworking-news/Wood-Resource-Recovery-Sues-Gainesville-Energy-for-5-Million–298549191.html#sthash.NCI7OGRV.dpbs