Our competitors say we’re old and slow to change. That our machines are ugly. That we’re not on the cutting edge. We say, “Yup.” “Old” means we’ve been around for over 100 years—and we’ll be here for 100 more. “Slow to change” means we don’t do fads. Oh, we’ll turn on a dime to make changes that our customers need. But fads? Nah. We’d rather protect your investment. “Not cutting edge” means we’re proven. We build what works and we stick with it. And “ugly”? Well. You don’t need to be pretty to make a damn good pellet mill. GLOBAL BIOMASS GROUP Your Partner in Productivity CPM Biomass Group CPM/Europe BV 1-601-932-9080 www.cpm.net +31 75 65 12 611 www.cpmeurope.nl plant stays the same – the boilers, turbines, generators, cooling system and so forth. And there is no loss of energy efficiency. So, by converting to wood pellets, genera-tors are able to use almost all of their exist-ing infrastructure. Since the U.K. plans to phase out coal power generation by 2025, biomass power generation is a great way to repurpose existing power stations. One of the benefits of power from wood pellets is that unlike wind and solar energy, it is dispatchable, in other words, available on demand. That means that wood pellet power has the flexibility to be used for base load and for peaking. Although wood pellets are more ex-pensive than coal, they provide substantial environmental benefits over coal. Besides being renewable and having 80 to 90 per cent lower carbon emissions, they are lower in NOx, SOx, Mercury, other heavy metals and ash. In the U.K., renewable electricity is sup-ported by the Contract for Difference (CFD) mechanism. Drax Power, Lynemouth Power, and MGT Power were all supported by early CFD contracts, but unfortunately additional biomass power conversions are not eligible to bid in the upcoming CFD auctions. A 2016 study by NERA Econom-ic Consulting and Imperial College showed that when system integration costs are con-sidered, biomass conversions are the low-est cost renewable electricity option and provide the best value for U.K. consumers. System integration costs include providing back up for intermittent sources like wind and solar, and balancing when those sourc-es are not available, which is more than half the time. System integration costs can amount to as much as 13 per cent of the total cost of electricity. According to NERA and Imperial College, if developers of bio-mass power conversions were allowed to participate, it could save U.K. consumers as much as 2.2 billion pounds in system integration costs. This is a great opportuni-ty for the U.K., which plans to phase out coal power generation by 2025. Drax has told us that they are willing convert a fourth boiler to biomass if allowed to participate in upcoming CFD auctions. For there to be a level playing field, full system costs must be considered and biomass should be en-titled to the full 15 years of support that is currently available to other renewable tech-nologies. On Nov. 21, Canada’s Environment Min-ister Catherine McKenna announced Cana-da’s intention to completely phase out coal power by 2030 following Alberta’s lead from November 2015. Alberta intends to replace one third of its coal power with renewables and two thirds by natural gas. Alberta has 18 coal power stations, some of which are approaching end of life. How-ever, there are five newer units that will not be fully depreciated by 2030. We see an opportunity to repurpose several of those power units to use wood pellets. Although the Government of Alberta has not yet fully defined its phase-out plan for coal, on Nov. 3 of the year it released a report describing how its renewable en-ergy support scheme will work. It will use an auction process that looks very similar to the U.K.’s CFD mechanism. It will be fuel-neutral. Alberta plans to hold its first auction in early 2017 for renewable energy projects to be in service by 2019. While we like the structure of Alberta’s auction pro-cess, we observe that the first auction is to be capped at 400 MW, which is less than 10 per cent of Alberta’s ultimate renewable energy target. This is not large enough to ac-commodate the biomass conversion of even a single power unit. So, the first auction seems to be targeted at wind and solar. The schedule for future auctions will be updated as Alberta completes its plan to phase out coal. We are optimistic that there will be an opportunity for biomass conver-sions of the newer coal units. The province will have grid reliability concerns if the cur-rent dispatchable baseload provided by coal is not replaced. Converting just a single power unit in Alberta would consume about 1.7 million tonnes of wood pellets per year. Between Alberta and neighbouring B.C., the forest industry creates ample raw material to pro-duce those pellets. There is a lot of knowl-edge that has been gained here in the U.K. from Drax and other biomass power proj-ects that could be transferred to Alberta, further strengthening the relationship be-tween our two countries. . . . Although I made my remarks passion-ately, delegates looked at me as though I was from Mars. Perhaps they thought I had come to the wrong conference. It was evi-dent to me that we need to do much more to educate senior government and industry leaders – both in Canada and in the U.K. – about the benefits of biomass. • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 CPM BIOMASS • CANADIAN BIOMASS 10 BIOMASS ORDER 828 Canadian • LINE 1 • INSERTION JAN/FEB 1/3 PAGE • 2 1/8X10 • DEADLINE 1/20/16 CREATIVE: BIO PRETTY PELLET
Canadian Biomass January February 2017: Page 10
