and Austria, where residential pellet heat- ing was entrenched, the trio decided that for “both environmental and economic rea- sons, it made a lot of sense to import some of those systems here,” Dresser recalls. They also decided early on that the solution lay in automated central heating systems and bulk delivery, not in bag-fed pellet stoves. At this point, Maine Energy Systems (MESys) was born. At the same time, the company faced much the same “to do” checklist as discussed above. Rather than wait for more favourable government incentives, however, the investors charged ahead on their own. “The next step was actually a lot of steps that all have to happen at once. It’s not the chicken or the egg syndrome – it’s the chick- en and the egg, as it all has to happen simul- taneously or it won’t happen at all,” Dresser says. Using private funds, the company had to source high-quality pellets; develop a storage system using local depots; create a bulk delivery system that could deliver pellets without damaging them; pursue a public education and marketing campaign; establish and educate a network of dealers/ installers; win over regulators and insurance providers to what was a foreign technol- ogy in every sense; and pursue all the other mundane realities facing new businesses, like staffing and obtaining financing. “You’ve got five or six dendrites to handle all at once,” says the former biology profes- sor. “So what you need to make this work is patient investment. You’ve got to put all these aspects in place before you build a cli- ent base.” For pellets, MESys relies on two Maine plants plus Energex, a large supplier just over the border in Quebec. The first step was to prepare these suppliers for the de- mands of central heating and automated pellet handling systems. MESys worked with all three to improve pellet durabil- ity along with other quality parameters. “They’ve responded very well, with im- provements from 90–94% durable to well over 98% durable,” Dresser says. “They have also worked well with us to adapt to the particular burning environment of the boilers, which burn hotter than the stoves they had been supplying. They’re working with us to avoid slagging and clinkers. It has been a positive relationship.” Delivery is done using several strate- gically placed depots and a fleet of three branded delivery trucks in Lewiston and Bethel, Maine, and over the border in New Hampshire. These are modified versions of 26 CanadianBIOMASS the trucks the partners saw in Europe. “Es- sentially they look like oil trucks, but are adapted from grain trucks. The pellets are delivered using pneumatics, rather than an auger, which is easier on the pellets. Pellets, even our more durable ones, are fragile, and these trucks handle them accordingly.” MESys is currently working with a region- al tank fabricator and a truck manufacturer to create the next generation of fully pressur- ized delivery truck, which will deliver pellets more gently and quickly. The truck will more closely resemble European delivery trucks than North American grain trucks. When it comes to appliance installation and service, MESys relies on established HVAC contractors, but with one caveat. “We train them on biomass heating, as well as on our residential heating systems in particular. It’s different than they’re used to, and we want to ensure quality installations.” ME- Sys has trained 300 local reps to date, so the pipeline is in place to install and service what they sell. As for the return on all this investment, Dresser admits that it has been slow. The company has what he calls “very few” cli- ents, although that translates to more than 110 heating systems sold and over half of those as delivery clients. He says this pace has as much to do with the general economy as the business model. “You have the overlay of the general U.S. economy, which does not make a good cli- mate for investment. But if you pull that back, it’s doing OK. It has to do well ulti- mately if you look at our current heating mix. We’re past peak petroleum at this point by most accounts, so we’ll have to do things dif- ferently. We’re like the Saudi Arabia of wood pellets here in Maine, so it’s a natural switch.” In other words, developing a residen- tial pellet heating market is slow, demand- ing work best done at the local level. While there are strong roles for governments, wood pellet associations, pellet manufac- turers, and appliance makers to play as fi- nancial partners, it is possible that this local entrepreneurial approach will be the most efficient in the short term until a critical mass is established. The main question is whether the Ca- nadian wood pellet sector will react in time to create alternative markets before its un- healthy dependence on a single market comes home to roost. Or, like the lumber industry, will it wait until the ceiling falls in and it lacks both the time and finances to diversify? • EVENTS BOARD MAY 25-27, 2010 • World Bioenergy 2010 Jönköping, Sweden www.elmia.se/en/worldbioenergy JUNE 8-10, 2010 • Bioenergy Conference & Exhibition Prince George, BC www.bioenergyconference.org/ index.php JUNE 10-11, 2010 • Biomass Boiler Workshop New Orleans, LA www.jansenboiler.com/workshops. html JUNE 16-17, 2010 • CanBio Bioenergy Policy Workshop Ottawa, ON www.canbio.ca JULY 18-20, 2010 • Pellet Fuels Institute Annual Conference Asheville, NC www.pelletheat.org/2/index/index. html JULY 20-21, 2010 • Biomass ’10 Grand Forks, ND www.undeerc.org/biomass10 AUGUST 4-6, 2010 • Northeast Biomass Conference & Expo Boston, MA http://ne.biomassconference.com AUGUST 24-26, 2010 • BioPro Expo 2010 Atlanta, GA www.bioproexpo.org AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 4, 2010 • Forest Bioenergy 2010 Tampere & Jämsä, Finland http://bioforest.finbioenergy.fi/ SEPTEMBER 8-10, 2010 • InterPellets Stuttgart, Germany SEPTEMBER 12-16, 2010 •World Energy Congress Montreal, QC www.wecmontreal2010.ca SEPTEMBER 16-17, 2010 • Biomass Boiler Workshop Minneapolis, MN www.jansenboiler.com/workshops. html MARCH/APRIL 2010
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