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Judge orders bankrupt Maine biomass company to sell assets

Stored Solar's West Enfield biomass plant is shown in 2017. The plant is one of the assets that a bankruptcy judge has ordered the company to sell to pay down debts.
Darren Fishell
/
BDN
Stored Solar's West Enfield biomass plant is shown in 2017. The plant is one of the assets that a bankruptcy judge has ordered the company to sell to pay down debts.

Two biomass plants in Maine were sold at auction Wednesday in bankruptcy court in Bangor.

The corporate owner, Stored Solar, filed for bankruptcy in September. Hartree Partners, an energy investment group that was Stored Solar's primary creditor, assumed ownership of the company.

Hartree Partners now owns the biomass plants in West Enfield and Jonesboro, as well as five others in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The plants burn woodchips, and can generate a total of 136 megawatts of power.

Stored Solar benefitted from state support, including a bill that diverted $13 million to the company in 2016. Still, the company struggled, and left debts to loggers and other vendors.

Stored Solar principal Bill Harrington declined to comment on the sale. And Hartree Partners wouldn't comment on its plans for the Maine biomass plants.

Murray Carpenter is Maine Public’s climate reporter, covering climate change and other environmental news.