Photos: Myriam Gauthier Bastien Deschênes (left), president of Granulco, and Steeve St-Gelais, president of Boisaco, say co-operative values guided construction of the pellet plant. Aspen sawdust from Bersaco does not bind well, and so it is used as fuel for the burner. for a few months during the winter of 2011. Some employees were transferred to Boisaco during this period. Yet Granulco survived. “There is no doubt these rough markets have delayed our plans. In many ways we are lucky, as we have some clear synergies between the sites, such as the electricity and water infrastructure, for ex-ample, “says Deschênes. MARkET ECO-ENERGy Granulco is for the moment chiefly in the domestic heat market: the factory produces annually about one million bags of pellets for stoves. The pellets are made from soft-wood sawdust (black spruce, fir, pine) from the Boisaco sawmill. The plant also uses at times 5% of white and yellow birch saw-dust provided by Bersaco, a sawmill and pallet component supplier on another Boi-saco industrial site in the municipality of Grandes-Bergeronnes. Aspen sawdust also from Bersaco is set aside, and since 2012 is used as fuel for the plant’s boiler. “The compression of aspen saw-dust is more difficult, since there is not much lignin in this species, so we decided to use it otherwise to avoid waste,” says Deschênes. Processing Systems for Bioenergy Liberating Untapped Energy A worldwide leader in size reduction technology for bioenergy, Vecoplan works with individual customers to design, engineer, manufacture and implement technologically advanced, material specific, and application specific shredding, ferrous and non-ferrous removal, size and density separation, screening and classification technologies and extremely efficient conveyor and bulk material handling, metering, storage and unloading technologies. Contact Vecoplan today to learn more about our existing systems or to arrange a visit to one, or several, of our installations. Phone: (336) 252-4774 vecoplanllc.com 16 Canadian BIOMASS MarCh/april 2013
Canadian Biomass March/April 2013: Page 16
