The fibre for the pellets and the pellets themselves are produced within 200 kilometres of the facility. require less force than the very hard coal. “All the modifications have been done with extensive benchmarking and research by Hitachi. They supplied the technology that informed the design changes,” he says. Previously, five pulverizers acted like oversized mortars and pestles to grind the coal to dust, but the pellets require only one pass through the pulverizers to be returned to their native sawdust form so four were removed and replaced with explosive suppression. Wood pellets have a low moisture content versus the 10 per cent found in coal so the pre-drying stage was eliminated from the process. Doosan Power Systems supplied the burners. They were able to replace the coal burners and slot into the same openings on the boiler and the system was fit with new igniters and scanners. “The main focus of the project was making sure we got the right science and technology and the right folks out there that are doing this well.” Boyko says his team visited biomass generation stations in Europe to become familiar with the process, the challenges and best practices. “This is a first for OPG and will be the largest in North America so we wanted to make sure we did our homework and got the right partners.” Now that the upgrades are almost complete, Boyko expects to be bringing in some pre-test fuel early this year. This will involve run-ning pellets down the completed silos, around the bucket elevator, through the process and perhaps through the pulverizers. Rentech will be ready to supply in the middle of 2014 with Resolute adding its pellets in the fall. In the meantime, Boyko is rightfully proud of OPG’s accomplish-ments in Atikokan and he’s happy to share his knowledge with others. “This facility is drawing a lot of attention,” he boasts. “We’ve conducted a number of tours and we anticipate hosting a lot more going forward simply because we’ll be the largest in North America.” • For more on pellets, visit www.canadianbiomassmagazine.ca KAHL Wood Pelleting Plants Quality worldwide. AMANDUS KAHL GmbH & Co. KG, SARJ Equipment Corp., Mr. Rick B. MacArthur, 29 Golfview Blvd., Bradford, Ontario L3Z 2A6 Phone: 001-905-778-0073, Fax: 001-905-778-9613, [email protected] www.akahl.de Canadian BIOMASS 17
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