WPAC Report Progressing Canadian pellet producers’ interests WPAC reflects on 2019 accomplishments and looks ahead to 2020 By Gordon Murray very fall, the Wood Pellet Association of Canada (WPAC) holds an annual general meeting where we review the progress of the previous year and seek in-put into the business plan for the follow-ing year. During this year’s AGM, mem-bers approved these focus areas: • Reinforcing the reputation of Canada’s wood pellet supply chain regarding high quality, sustainability and ethical business practices with markets in Eu-rope and Asia • Creating opportunities in Canada’s do-mestic wood pellet heating sector • Participating in the development of the Sustainable Biomass Program to pro-vide third-party certification of Canada’s wood pellet sustainability credentials • Continuing to improve the wood pellet sector’s safety performance • Continuing to support applied wood pellet research and development in co-operation with the University of British Columbia Biomass and Bioenergy Re-search Group. Here are some highlights of what we have accomplished over the past few months, and a look at our upcoming ac-tivities: INTERNATIONAL MARKET SUPPORT E WPAC will present a workshop on Human Machine Interface Best Practices in April 2020. Details will be released soon. Photo courtesy Pinnacle Renewable Energy. In Europe, WPAC is a director of both the Bioenergy Europe trade association, which advocates on behalf of the Euro-pean bioenergy sector, and the European Pellet Council, which is responsible for ENplus wood pellet quality certification. We have nearly completed the fourth re-vision of the ENplus quality program. WPAC has also been active in Japan. We recently joined the British Columbia Forest Sector Mission to Japan where, to-gether with our customer Sumitomo, we met with B.C.’s forestry minister Doug Donaldson and chief forester Diane Nich-olls to discuss the need for improved fi-bre supply access for the pellet sector. In February, I will be participating in the an-nual IEA Clean Coal Biomass Co-Firing workshop in Kokura, Japan to give a pre-sentation, “Demonstrating that electricity production from solid biomass is both low-carbon and sustainable.” In May, we will, as usual, be sponsor-ing and helping to present the Biomass Pellet Trade and Power Conference in Tokyo. WPAC will provide speakers and host a reception for Japanese customers. We will also arrange meetings with Japa-nese energy industry regulators to discuss potential market access concerns and reinforce the sustainability of Canadian wood pellets. CANADIAN MARKET SUPPORT WPAC has progressed on three fronts in pushing for more Canadian market support. First, we have been advocating with Environment and Climate Change Can-ada for changes to the proposed Clean Fuel Standard Regulation to make fuel switching from heating oil to wood pel-lets eligible for carbon credit generation. Second, we have progressed on our ini-tiative to harmonize Canadian and Euro-pean biomass boiler pressure standards. In February, we will be attending a meeting between the Government of Canada and the European Commission on reducing regulatory barriers under the Canada-Eu-rope trade agreement where our issue has made it onto the agenda. We will also be present at a second meeting between the provinces, the Government of Canada, WINTER 2020 8 Canadian BIOMASS
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