Canadian Biomass • Summer 2019 • DISTRICT ENERGY LESSONS LEARNED

Not all of Fink Enderby’s lessons learned have been rosy; some have been harder lessons, says David Dubois, Fink Machine’s manager of business development.

“There’s an evolution going on right now. And like most businesses, we have to react to them,” Dubois says.

Here’s his definitive list on what to bear in mind if considering a district energy system:

“Going into this project, we knew what our fibre basket looked like in our area, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t changed suppliers andencounteredchallenges,” Dubois says.

While it’s good to have long-term suppliers, it’s not always possible. Major suppliers aren’t typically looking for small 300 to 400-tonne per year contracts, so if they are able to supply feedstock, it may be temporary.

“We just have to make sure we’re aware of the larger market so when things change we are able to react and identify new suppliers,” he says. “That industry awareness is a key piece of what we need to do.”

“When we first started we really weren’t on the radar of utilities here in B.C. We still aren’t, but they have recognized small-scale energy systems do fall within their mandate. There is this ongoing process and evolution,” Dubois says.

That evolution led to questions around registration, filings and ways to ensure they are staying withinregulationparameters. Municipalities are exempt, but because Fink Enderby is privately owned they are under certain constraints.

“It’s a bit of a moving goal post and there have been changes since we started that had the potential to impact us, so it was important we stayed on top of those,” Dubois says.

There has been some recent movement in Canada around emissions regulations that may impact biomass district energy systems. Emissions are provincial jurisdiction, but there are efforts underway to standardize the marketplace on the national level.

Regulations aside, in the spring of 2018 Fink Enderby made the decision to install a cyclone filter on the boiler flue gas system to bring its emissions down even lower.

“We recognize we’re also part of a community,” Dubois says. “It wasn’t needed or inspired by any comments or concerns, but that’s us being a good, proactive corporate citizen.”

Fink Enderby regularly hosts open houses to welcome the community into the facility to learn what they’re all about. The importance of the larger community was a lesson they learned quickly, Dubois says.

“Within the industry we’re known, but not necessarily by the general public. We all have the tendency to fly beneath the radar, but we really need to make sure that we are educating people about what it is we do,” he says.

The open house also helps them maintain a strong relationship with the local government. “We have learned to appreciate that what we’re doing has an impact on our community and having the support of the local government is a key piece. That can be a surprise sometimes for a private enterprise.”

Central to Fink Enderby’s success is their ability, as a private company, to remain flexible to all these challenges and jump on opportunities as they are presented, Dubois says.

“Our decision-making matrix is very compact, very simple, due to our knowledge and experience. We can say, ‘Yes, we can do that,’ and that’s all we need. We’ll do our due diligence, of course, but we don’t need a 45-page report from three different engineering companies. We can do our own calculations to find out what will work,” he says.