Secretary of Commerce and Trade Jim Cheng, Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative and its development partner NOVI Energy and more than 150 Virginia state and local officials and guests celebrated the "grand opening" of the NOVEC Energy Production, Halifax County Biomass plant Thursday with a luncheon at The Prizery followed by a ribbon cutting and plant tour.

"It's great to be back in Virginia for this event. I am honored to be here to represent the governor and the lieutenant governor in this

remarkable grand opening of the power plant in Halifax County," said Cheng.

"It's been a long time coming, since 2009. But, you know, in terms of energy production, that's really an amazingly short time frame. It shows great teamwork between localities, the state, the federal government and of course, NOVEC."

Among the speakers were Stan Feuerburg, president and CEO of NOVEC, Thomas West, chairman of the Halifax County Board of Supervisors, South Boston Mayor Ed Owens, John Paldalino, the administrator of Rural Utilities Service, Sheldon Petersen, the CEO of Cooperative Finance Corporation, Tom Halverson, the chief banking officer of CoBank, Anand Gangadharan, president of NOVI Energy, and Wade House, chairman of NOVEC Board of Directors.

Each speaker expressed appreciation for the new state-of-the-art renewable energy power plant, located on Plywood Trail in South Boston.

This plant will be capable of generating 49.9 megawatts of electricity for the cooperatives' customer-owners by burning wood chips. The wood waste is burned as fuel to create power in a "carbon-neutral" process creating steam. The steam then spins a turbine that produces energy. "Reclaimed water" from the local water authority will be used to cool the plant.

The plant will provide enough electricity to power 16,000 homes.