Ryegate biomass plant requests one‑year delay to efficiency deadlines; new owners say technical and market disruptions drove need

Owners of the Ryegate biomass electric generation facility asked the Senate Finance Committee on May 20 for a one‑year extension of statutory deadlines that require the plant to make efficiency upgrades to qualify for a utility power‑purchase obligation.

Lenny Carter, who identified himself as president of Ryegate Associates and managing partner of Mizzen Capital (the company that became the plant’s owner three weeks earlier), told the committee that supply‑chain problems and tariffs on specialized heat‑recovery and drying equipment from Europe made the original upgrade plan uneconomic. Carter said earlier arrangements to dry wood chips for resale were canceled and that the new ownership needs time to pivot to a different, internally integrated plan to dry and burn its own chips.

“We need about a year to make sure that fundamental engineering work can pivot to a new process that is going to still work,” Carter said. He described the plant as a…