Project Reports residential pellets – Quebec district heat A new pellet mill in central Ontario w ill manufacture and distribute a super premium hardwood pellet for commercial and residential use. Direct Pellet Industries Inc. (DPI) expects to begin produc-tion in the spring of 2011 in the former Lumber Lane sawmill on Kennaway Road, just outside Haliburton. DPI, which also sells Maxim Heat wood pellet stoves, started out retailing pellets obtained from a source in the United States and now operates from depots throughout Ontario. To avoid transport hassles and an unsteady exchange rate on the Canadian dollar, and to ensure a reliable, local supply, co-owners Brad Lyons and Amanda Chort decided about a year ago to manufacture and distribute their own wood pellets. They intend to introduce a European-style distribution system in which the pellet boilers are accompanied by 1.5 to 2-tonne bins that will eventually allow for bulk delivery of pellets. Ac-cording to co-owner Brad Lyons, “you get the sav-ings of bioenergy with the convenience of propane or oil.” The two partners plan to hire six plant opera-tors and two truck drivers and sell 40-pound bags of pellets, to be marketed under the Haliburton Highlands brand. The goal is to manufacture be-tween 15,000 and 20,000 tonnes of pellets for the company’s first-year output, running 10 eight-hour shifts each week. Lyons emphasizes that the pellets will be made of clean, pure hardwood from a source in Toronto and will be priced competi-tively. The mill’s efficient process and central location for delivery to customers in Ontario, Quebec, and parts of the United States make it relatively inexpensive to manufacture and distribute the premium pellets. Equipment is on site and being installed at the 5,000-square-foot mill. The company is building an 8,000-square-foot fibre building connected to the main building. Lyons has sourced used Andritz Sprout pellet mills, pellet cooler, and fines separator from a closed plant in the United States, along with various conveying equipment. The partners have also purchased a used Carter Day dust collector from the recently closed Kaufman furniture plant in West Virginia. To design the plant, Lyons and Chort brought on board engineer Tom Smith, former owner of TS Manufacturing near Lindsay, On-tario, who has 35 years in the wood machinery business building sawmills from scratch. Photo: Direct Pellet Industries Photo: Cité Verte ABOVE: Cité Verte’s boiler room, now under construction, is expected to be complete in February 2011. LEFT: Direct Pellet Industries will sell its hardwood pellets whole-sale, allowing it to charge a lower price than for other hardwood pellets and about on par with the price for softwood pellets. The project has substantial financial support from the Haliburton County Development Cor-poration, and nearly $850,000 has come from private sources. Lyons is enthusiastic about the project: “We want to convert people to start burning wood pellets. It’s 70% savings over most other ways of heating.” QueBeC dIstrICt heat After an extensive search, partners in La Cité Verte have pur-chased equipment and begun construction on the $300-million biomass-based urban district heating demonstration project. The main heating plant is expected to begin operation in time for the 2011 heating season. Located in central Quebec City, La Cité Verte is an environmen-tally friendly community intended to manage renewable energy and water consumption while using energy efficient design for building and community energy systems. It is supported by grants of up to $5 million each from Natural Resource Canada’s Clean Energy Fund and Hydro-Québec’s Avenues program. Claude Routhier, president of engineering at Poly-Énergie Inc., the Quebec City-based energy efficiency specialist of the project, says the project’s district heating system was inspired by a design from Aqotec, an Austrian firm that has recently entered into a partnership with Regulvar Inc., which has offices in Quebec, Ontario, and eastern Canada. The main biomass boiler has been purchased from Wa-terloo, Ontario-based Viessmann Group, a German-owned company NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 22 Canadian BIOMASS
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