Natalie Binder is part of the third generation running Binderholz’ integrated wood products company. She manages marketing and the solid biomass fuel side of the business. sAFe And CleAn the trucks are loaded, they are parked on scales that determine the weight of each load for invoicing. The plant produces about 90,000 tonnes per year of wood pellets for sale in Austria, Italy and Germany. The entire operation is very clean and well organized. Buildings are made from wood and concrete so as to reduce fire hazard. There are brooms and shovels everywhere and all surfaces are free of dust and debris. Equipment is well maintained and wiped free of grease and dirt. Spark and fire pro-tection is evident. There are explosion vents everywhere they may be needed. Interestingly, personnel do not wear hard hats or safety glasses, but they do wear hi-vis vests. Individuals who work alone are equipped with motion sensors and GPS track-ers. If a motion sensor stops moving, mean-ing an employee may be hurt, an emergency response will immediately be dispatched. Binderholz certifies its wood pellets us-ing the ENplus quality certification system managed by the European Pellet Council. Binder believes that the ENplus certification is highly beneficial. “Because we have complete control of all raw material from our own wood prod-ucts plants, Binderholz has always had high raw material quality. Therefore we are able to reach ENplusA1 values easily, and exceed them. ENplus has been widely adopted in Europe and has become the most widely ac-cepted pellet quality certification system and is supported by the stove and boiler manu-facturers.” Binder has clearly shown that she knows a thing or two about pellets. After all, she and her company – Binderholz – are responsible for producing more than 15% of Austria’s wood pellets. Austria may be a tiny country, but it is a superpower when it comes to wood pellets, both producing them, and consum-ing them for sustainable energy. • Gordon Murray is executive director of the Wood Pellet As-sociation of Canada and wrote this article exclusively for Canadian Biomass. Gordon welcomes all comments and can be contacted by telephone at 250-837-8821 or by e-mail at [email protected]. For more on pellets, visit www.canadianbiomassmagazine.ca 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 22 Canadian BIOMASS MAY/JUNE 2013
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