NEWP’s new plant near Deposit, New York, is the largest in the Northeast United States and is scheduled to produce 85,000 tons annually for the domestic wood fuel pellet market. Pellet Manufacturing Northeast’s Largest New NEWP Plant New innovations and technologies headline pellet plant. By Dan Shell Walker noted the new plant is “perfect-ly located to supply all of southern New York, eastern Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey. We’re making a major con-tribution to helping the region achieve greater energy independence by reducing reliance on imported and expensive heat-ing oil and propane.” He added that, although many plant operators try to locate facilities in an area with low wood costs, he takes a dif-ferent approach and seeks a location in proximity to the nearest major markets. As a result, the plant procures material from many smaller sources, as opposed to a rural plant that may have a supply agreement with a large landowner. At the same time, transportation costs are lower. There’s only a finite amount of dollar value loaded onto a truck, and once transpor-tation costs begin eating too heavily into margins, hauling distance must be lim-ited, Walker said. The new pellet plant is the fifth such project for Walker, who started NEWP in 1992. The company also operates pel-let plants in Jaffrey, New Hampshire and Schuyler, New York. At the Deposit plant, a compact de-sign includes an MEC triple-pass dryer, S taRtup continues smoothly at New England Wood Pellet’s (NEWP) new Deposit, New York, plant, which opened in early June. The plant is the largest in the Northeast United States and is scheduled to produce 85,000 tons annually for the domestic wood fuel pellet market. The facility is the third for NEWP and has expanded overall company production by roughly 50%. “The project startup is going well,” said NEWP CEO Steve Walker, an almost 20-year veteran of the pellet industry, in early July. “We’ve had multiple days running at full capacity, and we’re almost to 24/7 op-erating conditions right now.” The $14.5-million plant is a big boost to the local community, operating on the site of a former Norbord Industries panel mill that NEWP purchased in November 2009 after it closed. More than $10 million in payroll, feedstock and supply purchas-es have been added to the local economy. The Deposit facility currently employs 16, and an estimated 100 additional jobs are supported in logging, trucking, supplier and pellet retailer activities. two 500 HP Bliss hammermills, three Andritz pellet mills (with provisions for a fourth) and an automated Hamer bag-ging line feeding to a Wulftec shrink wrap turntable. Fired by a Wellons burner, the dryer is oversized and allows lower dry-ing temps that help reduce volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. Other key components include a 14-metre Peerless truck dump, Carrier vibrating conveyors, BM&M screening systems, Kice baghouse, in-house designed cyclones, and Allen-Bradley PLCs and control systems. saFe design Engineering and building safety as part of plant design is a big emphasis for Walker, who said he believes in assuming inci-dents will happen but working as hard as possible to prevent them, and to mitigate damages if they do occur. “We do all our explosion venting through the walls. It’s engineered in, and we go way above the code required and tend to overdo it,” he said. Walker also de-scribed the plant’s production building as “full of holes” from the conveyor penetra-tions and explosion venting systems. The plant utilizes a Firefly spark detec-tion system and complements that with Canadian BIOMASS 29
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