It was the largest energy savings incentive check ever given by the Bonneville Power Administration and Flathead Electric Cooperative.

Plum Creek Timber Co. received the $386,635 check for a project at its sawmill in Columbia Falls that will save the company 1.7 million kilowatt-hours per year — about what 150 average U.S. homes consume per year.

The company spent $522,337 consolidating the compressed air system at the sawmill. The completed project includes a new 300 horsepower motor and compressor, an electronic variable-frequency drive that provides the optimum amount of electricity to the motor as loads change, advanced digital controls, a 1,500 gallon holding tank and peripheral equipment.

Under the FEC/BPA Energy Smart Industrial program, Plum Creek was eligible for a rebate based on either 70 percent of the project cost or 25 cents per kilowatt-hour saved, whichever was less. The company pays about $1 million a month for electrical power.

So far, Plum Creek has completed 11 custom projects that have saved 13.9 million kilowatt-hours and earned the company $2.1 million in incentives. Those projects are in place at the Evergreen and Columbia Falls plants. More projects are planned.

Tom Ray, Plum Creek’s vice president for Montana operations, credited the partnership between Plum Creek, the Co-op and BPA for helping it stay competitive while the company strives to reduce its carbon footprint. The company purchases 6 megawatts of green power from Sierra Pacific’s biomass co-gen plant in Aberdeen, Wash.

“Plum Creek is committed to reducing the impact of our operations,” Ray said. “By working with the BPA and FEC rebate program, we were able to reduce our energy consumption and cover a greater part of the costs of the new system.”

The latest project is the largest stand-alone project the Co-op has undertaken with an industrial customer, said Don Newton, the Co-op’s key account representative. The focus of the project was increased energy efficiency, he said, which is important to the Co-op’s members.

“Our goal is to encourage other members to invest in technologies that will help them achieve energy efficiencies and reduce costs,” he said. “We consider this project to be a great example of what can be accomplished.”

Plum Creek is the Co-op’s biggest customer. The Columbia Falls MDF plant’s three “fiber refiners,” or huge grinding machines, together have 34,000 horsepower. Running at full capacity, the motors would consume about 25 megawatts. The total load on Flathead Electric Cooperative is about 140 megawatts.

Ray said things are turning around for the timber industry. Housing starts across the U.S. hit a low of 500,000 in 2009 as the economy went into a recession. They will hit 1 million this year, he said.

Plum Creek has restarted the Evergreen plant, which is running with one shift, Ray said. Line 2 at the MDF plant is running 24/7, while Line 1 is running four days a week for 24 hours. Both the plywood and sawmill plants in Columbia Falls have two shifts running.