plant. It includes a fully auto- mated Ital Meccanica bagging and palletizing system from Italy for retail sales that was added in 2001, as well as a bulk loading system that is used to fill delivery vehicles. These single and b-train tankers resemble home heating oil delivery trucks seen in Cana- da, but are able to carry pellets to commercial and residential cus- tomers. The BooForssjo-branded delivery truck we saw had a combined tip and hose system to fi ll homeowner’s bulk pellet hop- pers, while another example on site used hose systems. The end result is the same – The same Hot Marketing Ideas Domestic pellet markets will be increasingly important in Canada and the US as a hedge over Europe’s politically primed market, but first weneed to develop delivery, storage, and utilization systems that go beyond the Franklin stovemodel. Both on tour through southern Sweden and at the World Bioenergy trade show, Canadian Biomass saw all the tools for creating and servicing a local home and industrial heating market in a way that requires nothing more from the end user than heating oil does. That’s why half of Sweden’s 1.6 million tonnes of pellets used annually go to home heating, and the average Swede uses 65 kg of pellets for residential heating each year. There are folks in parts of Canada and the northeastern US, both in the wood products sector and in the heating oil distribution business looking into developing storage, bulk delivery, and auto- mated heating systems for wood pellets, spurred on byescalating oil prices. Many northeastern US home heating distributors have added pellets to their mix of products, although most of these are still in bag form. Smart retailers will start moving further along the bulk heating route. As one Maine entrepreneur said in explaining his pending investment in pellet heating technology, “People don’t buy their oil in a bag – They buy it in bulk. It will have to be the same with pellets.” There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, although wemay adapt existing technology to meet our own needs here over time. As the photos here show, there are lots to pick from already. convenience to homeowners as heating oil, without the smell and at lower cost. For the mill, it allows a portion of its production to go right to the retail market. The fourth stop on our tour was a little far afi eld for the for- est biomass sector, and thank- fully so for my taste. The public utility biogas plant in Linköping (140,000 pop.) converts slaugh- terhouse waste products to bio- gas as an alternative to propane or diesel in cars and trains. The smell from the plant is indescrib- able, and while we are no doubt heading this way in Canada, fi nding sites for such plants will be controversial. Our tour guide admitted that a few neighbours continued to complain about the smell (an understatement), and this after an odour amelio- ration program. The company runs 12 or so fuelling stations in the town, selling biogas to taxis, buses and private cars, as well as to the locally famous biogas train Amanda. Our fi nal stop ahead of Elmia was a small community heating plant built in 2007. The commu- nity of Odeshog decided to wean itself entirely from fossil fuels, and in 2001 hired Lantmannen, an agricultural co-op and major Swedish player in bioenergy (pel- lets, heat plants, ethanol) to de- sign, build and run the plant. It uses a 3.5-MW Hotab boiler that can handle a wide range of bio- mass from 10 to 35% MC. It was running on wood chips while we visited, but the long-term plan is to use more agricultural crops and salix from local farmers. A separate biofuel boiler is avail- able for back-up or heavy loads, and runs on rapeseed oil. The simple plant supplies a 5.3-km grid with 12,500 MWh of heat. The next Elmia World Bio- energy conference, tour and show is slated for 2010. • BooForssjo is a Swedish sawmill that runs its own pellet plant, and then retails pellets directly either in bags fi lled on an automated system or in bulk from its own fl eet of pumper trucks (below). MAFA is a specialized pellet distribution, bulk storage and furnace feed system supplier in Sweden with a half-dozen automated options for pellet-burning home owners depending on space and house layout. Visit www.mafa.se for an idea of the variety and sophistication. 28 CanadianBIOMASS This simple yet effi cient and compact pellet infeed and forced air furnace system comes from a trio of Scandinavian suppliers co-operating on the project, and is aimed squarely at the North American retrofi t and new home market. The companies are Matene a.s. of Norway (unique vertical “fl uidizing” feeder), Ulma of Sweden (high- efficiency pellet burner), and Vanertekno of Sweden (compact hot air furnace). They are looking for distribution and some licensed manufacturing in North America. It was shown for the fi rst time ever at World Bioenergy, and will be shown again at Bioenergy Days late this coming September in Minnesota. www.matene.com. AUGUST 2008
Canadian Biomass August 08: Page 28
