From the Boston Globe, Today in Business
GREENFIELD - For someone who traffics in petroleum, Timothy Van Epps is doing everything he can to put his company out of that business.
Van Epps is president of Sandri Cos., an 80-year-old fuel oil company that is on a multimillion-dollar mission to convert heating customers to a common and cheap renewable resource: wood pellets. In March Sandri received $3.2 million in federal stimulus funds to help commercial and institutional clients in Western Massachusetts replace petroleum-based heating systems with boilers that burn wood pellets.
The pellet boilers have efficiency rates that rival the best of natural gas and oil boilers but are cheaper to operate. Best of all, they use an easy-to-replenish fuel source: sawdust and leftover chips from sawmills and other wood processing operations. Sandri has gone full throttle into the green movement, with a 25-ton pellet silo and pellet boiler to fire the hot water it uses to wash its 60 fuel delivery trucks, and plans to install a solar array on the roof of its Greenfield headquarters.