Emissions testing There has been some recent movement in Canada around emissions regulations that may impact biomass district energy systems. Emissions are provincial jurisdiction, but there are efforts underway to standardize the marketplace on the national level. Regulations aside, in the spring of 2018 Fink Enderby made the decision to install a cyclone filter on the boiler flue gas system to bring its emissions down even lower. “We recognize we’re also part of a community,” Dubois says. “It wasn’t needed or inspired by any comments or concerns, but that’s us being a good, proactive corporate citizen.” Public facing Fink Enderby regularly hosts open houses to welcome the community into the facility to learn what they’re all about. The importance of the larger community was a lesson they learned quickly, Dubois says. “Within the industry we’re known, but not necessarily by the general public. We all have the tendency to fly beneath the radar, but we really need to make sure that we are educating people about what it is we do,” he says. The open house also helps them maintain a strong relationship with the local government. “We have learned to appreciate that what we’re doing has an impact on our community and having the support of the local government is a key piece. That can be a surprise sometimes for a private enterprise.” Flexibility Central to Fink Enderby’s success is their ability, as a private company, to remain flexible to all these challenges and jump on opportunities as they are presented, Dubois says. “Our decision-making matrix is very compact, very simple, due to our knowledge and experience. We can say, ‘Yes, we can do that,’ and that’s all we need. We’ll do our due diligence, of course, but we don’t need a 45-page report from three different engineering companies. We can do our own calculations to find out what will work,” he says. an 8,000 litre buffer tank where it becomes a thermal heat sink. From the buffer tank the water flows to a hot water manifold and is then divided into the main lines, which feed client’s pipes. “It’s a pretty self-sufficient operation. We don’t need someone continuingly manning it. That’s how I wanted it: effortless,” Fink says. As a result, the entire system requires very minimal staff interaction and oversight. Fink measures and monitors each building’s usage remotely via a district energy management program from Schneid, an Austrian company that specializes in HVAC building management systems with a focus on district energy. CLIENT FOCUSED Fink expects they could see new clients coming on board shortly, which would require them to upsize the boiler from 540 kW to 720 kW. More clients mean the system’s efficiency goes up. “If you have a long main line with only two clients, you have heat loss from A to B. If you have more customers on that line the heat loss is divided up between all those customers,” Fink says. Fink Enderby offers its clients a fixed rate equal to what they are currently paying for their natural gas. Customers are saving by not having any combustion losses. For customers with older heating system that are only 80 or 85 per cent efficient, the result is 15-20 per cent less energy usage, and the resulting dollar savings. SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS After seven years of maintaining this small private utility model, the company has managed to stay in the black in spite of the fluctuations in gas prices across Canada. “With these low gas prices right now, it’s pretty much at the break-even point. There is not a lot of money in it as is. But, because I’m running it so efficiently without a lot of overhead, it’s successful,” Fink says. The real incentive for Fink is to showcase that his system makes sense in Canada. “Yes, we’re in the black, but the important thing was education. There are a lot of situations out there where these systems get priced to death in the design stage so they don’t even come off the ground. We proved that you don’t need $5-10 million for a small system like this.” The list of municipalities, First Nations and education institutions that have since installed wood boilers and district energy systems are the real testament to Fink Enderby’s success. “We’ve definitely been able to create business through our show system. Around four or five clients have installed district energy,” Fink says. • 18 Canadian BIOMASS 2019-01-09 7:21 AM SUMMER 2019 CB_CARDINAL_QUARTER_WINTER19_CSA.indd 1
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