River, Northwest Territories, is installing biomass district heat- ing that will warm four schools. Fink Machines and contractor J&R Mechanical will install the planned 950-kW KOB system in the summer of 2010. This should eliminate the need for about 318,000 litres/year of heating oil. ADDED CHALLENGES The Revelstoke district heating project illustrates a key problem faced by developers of biomass-fired district heating systems. Early plans for a combined heat and power plant were scaled down to small-scale heat to avoid costs associated with the re- quirement for 24-hour on-site monitoring by a boiler engineer. District heating involves accumulating heat loads to achieve economies of scale in the biomass plant. However, provincial boiler staffing regulations typically have very low thresholds for this monitoring requirement. For example, in PEI, the threshold is a combined boiler capacity of 1.5 MW, roughly the size of a modest high school; in the Northwest Territories, it is 950 kW. The added staffing costs outweigh the economic equation neces- sary to justify building such a system. Requirements for continuous staffing are a serious problem and are under review in a number of provinces, including Ontario and British Columbia. It is a big challenge to lobby for changes because of the variety of provincial legislation. The receptivity to construc- tive changes has been rather poor, but recently, some provinces have begun to show interest in addressing these barriers. What is the future of biomass-fired district heating in Canada? Despite the great success of district heating in Europe and for several successful pilot projects in Canada, the jury is still out in this coun- try. Many rural community development groups see bioenergy and district heating as a bright spot in a sea of rural economic gloom. However, key barriers still need to be addressed. We need to start thinking with a longer-term perspective. District heating systems do make sense if planners are willing to accept a return on investment of 20 years or more, as with other public infrastructure. The price of fossil fuels is very important, as is the price of carbon. Government policies at all levels must be aligned to promote district heating. We are going to face serious challenges to heat our towns and villages in the coming decades. District heating using renewable, economical biomass offers a practical solution. The systems are very capital intensive, but relatively cheap to operate. Government funding is needed to assist in building what could be hundreds of community- based district heating systems across Canada. Think about what that could mean in your community. • PEI’S EVOLVING DISTRICT HEATING SYSTEM he Prince Edward Island district heating system has changed a lot over the years since its inception. Initial funding for the PEI district heating systems came largely from the federal government through a federal-provincial agreement. The province implement- ed these projects through its Crown agent, the PEI Energy Corpo- ration, which installed and operated the district heating plants and the heat distribution systems. Initially, a single contractor supplied fuel chips for the district heating systems and about 16 smaller wood chip boilers installed in schools and hospitals across PEI. Things went along at a great clip, fuelled by federal agreement dollars, until oil prices softened and we entered the dark ages – a period of low oil prices and ram- pant government cutbacks in the mid-1990s. The PEI Energy Corporation was subjected to government-wide cutbacks, which left it unable to expand the district heating systems and with dif- ficulty in performing recommended system maintenance. Most of the smaller chip plants were abandoned by the school boards and hospitals, which were happy to burn cheap oil and avoid the maintenance work of the chip systems. One notable exception was the Prince County Hospital in Montague; it installed a chip burning system in 1981 that is still working today and has saved the hospital millions of dollars. The upshot of that funding dilemma was that the district heating assets of the PEI Energy Corporation were put up for sale and sold to Trigen, a private company, in 1996. Those assets included a garbage burning plant that was heating the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the district heating system centred at the university, and the original system based at the Prince Edward Home (the former hospital). Trigen refurbished the garbage-burning plant, adding scrubbers, installing a new 11- MW KMW biomass boiler, and relocating a smaller boiler of similar design for a combined capacity of 15 MW. The new 36 CanadianBIOMASS system also has a steam turbine and generator that produces up to 1.2 MW of power, which is mainly used within the plant. A larger turbine was considered, but the local utility would not offer a high enough price for power sold to the grid to justify the investment. The company also installed a lot of additional piping, which added more clients and consolidated the three systems into one large network. The Charlottetown district heating system has changed hands several times and now goes under the name of PEI Energy Sys- tems. It is owned by Fort Chicago, based in Calgary, Alberta, which purchased the system for some $50 million in 2008. FUEL SUPPLY Two contractors supply some 45,000 tonnes of wood chips an- nually to the plant. Because the heating plant wishes to op- timize output, it pays a premium for lower moisture content chips, so the contractors will cut wood ahead of time and allow it to dry over the summer months. The contractors provide chips year round, with increased deliveries in the colder winter months. Chips and chipping wood must also be stockpiled to get through the spring break-up period. The energy supply is currently about 45% wood chips; 35% municipal waste, which is declining because of increased recy- cling; and 17% heavy oil, which is up from 10% a few years ago. Oil use has risen because the capacity of the biomass and waste systems is maxed out. Fort Chicago is considering installing ad- ditional biomass thermal and power generation capacity. “District heating systems can be good business under the right conditions,” says David Godkin, Fort Chicago plant man- ager. “You need access to relatively low-cost biomass or mu- nicipal waste, and you need to have a substantial number of good-sized buildings concentrated in a core area of a city.” • MARCH/APRIL 2010
Canadian Biomass March/April 2010: Page 36
