A company that failed to buy a troubled trash facility in Hampden two years ago has now won the right to restart the foreclosed waste-to-energy incinerator in Orrington.
Delta Thermo Energy made the winning bid of $1.5 million during an auction on Thursday for the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. plant in Orrington, according to Plant Manager Henry Lang. The facility first went to auction Oct. 25, but did not get a single bid that day.
“There were more bidders in this auction, compared to the one on Oct. 25 and there were some observers hoping to start a deal with the new owners for power purchases, once the facility is back in operation,” Lang said in an email.
Delta has five days from the auction to provide 10 percent of the sale amount minus the $50,000 already paid to qualify as a bidder, Lang said. The remainder of the balance is due within 27 days.
Delta Thermo Energy had previously tried to buy the Hampden waste facility that shuttered in 2020 less than a year after it started running.
The CEO of Delta Thermo Energy, a Pennsylvania company, had embellished his business’ track record while trying to acquire the Hampden plant, and his company ultimately lost its exclusive right to purchase it after failing to show evidence of financing.
This time around, it’s not clear what the company is planning to do if it completes the purchase of PERC. A phone call and email to Delta Thermo Energy were not immediately returned on Thursday. And Lang did not respond to requests for additional information.
The Orrington plant has had trouble turning a profit since 2019, after losing a lucrative power-purchase agreement for the electricity it sold to the grid and after many Maine communities got behind the construction of the new waste facility in Hampden.
PERC now owes around $765,000 in real estate and personal property taxes. It stopped operating on May 2, but still accepted trash from the town of Orrington until it filled up in early September. That waste is now going to the Juniper Ridge Landfill in Old Town.
In recent years, the 40-acre facility located off of Route 15 has been taking in trash from 44 communities and commercial waste haulers.
Marie Weidmayer contributed reporting.