and be cleaner and more efficient, with lower operating costs,” he says. Its first commercial plant was commis-sioned in May of 2006 at a Tolko plywood mill near Kamloops that produces 38 mil-lion BTUs per hour. Since then, Nexterra has delivered six commercial plants in North America. Shortly after, GE Jenbacher approached Nexterra after looking for a biomass gasifi-cation system to feed its engines, and not having much success. “That’s when we started looking into a gas clean-up technology,” says Scott. “We had to find a way to get the tar out of the gas in a cost-effective and reliable way, and since we couldn’t find a system that worked, we thought we’d be better off de-veloping our own proprietary system.” After beginning testing, the company signed an MOU (memorandum of under-standing) with UBC in 2009. Then the real work began. UBC wanted to be an early adopter as well as support global companies in the power generation business, and according to Brent Sauder of UBC’s Sustainability Ini-tiative, partners had to be found in order to get the rest of the project off the ground. “UBC has its investment based on the performance of the thermal system,” he says. “We then de-risked the rest of the project by getting really good support from the various levels of government.” Supporting the BRDF at the federal level were Natural Resources Canada and Western Economic Diversification Cana-da, while at the provincial level, the BC Innovative Clean Energy Fund and the Ministry of Forests, Mines and Lands got involved. Sustainable Development Tech-nologies Canada, the BC Bioenergy Net-work, the Canadian Wood Council and FP Innovations were also enlisted. “Something like this does not hap-pen by one company going it alone,” says Scott. “It really does take a village.” The village included the university community, not just students and faculty, but residents who live in the area. “Building bridges with the community allowed us to raise their comfort level,” says Sauder. “And knowing Nexterra had a track record on emissions gave us the confidence that we were going to meet or exceed the city’s air shed requirements.” A 24-hour air monitoring station on the site backs up his claim. “There’s no way you can tell if the plant is running or not by looking at the data.” Scott says the company is excited about taking its gas cleanup and thermal cracking technology global and sees potential in in-ternational markets where power prices are relatively high, where there are renewable energy incentives and where there is built-in preference for distributed energy. “We’re seeing interest in the U.K., Ko-rea and Japan,” he explains. “Places that are ‘energy-stranded’ and have to import liquid natural gas.” Although low natural gas prices in North America have had a chilling effect on renewable energy, Scott believes Nexterra may yet get an opportunity to replicate the system closer to home. “There is a reasonable chance that over the next three to five years, a lot of natural gas in North America is going to be shipped offshore and we may see prices ÀÃiÊÌÊÜÀ`ÊiÛið»ÊU Rotary Dryer System Heat Energy Pellet Press Roller Biomass Pelletizing & Energy Systems Pellet Plants | Dryers | Furnaces | Steam Boilers | Thermal Oil Heaters | Cogeneration Dieffenbacher USA, Inc. 2000 McFarland 400 Blvd. | Alpahretta, GA 30004 Phone: (770) 226-6394 | [email protected] www.dieffenbacher.com Canadian BIOMASS 15
Canadian Biomass November/December 2012: Page 15
