From the thermal oil plant, the oil travels to the Organic Rankin Cycle building, which houses an Organic Rankin Cycle power generation system from Turboden. There, the hot thermal oil heats another oil called cyclopentane. “That cyclopentane, when it gets to a certain temperature, turns gaseous. When it becomes gaseous, then it turns the turbine, which turns the generator that produces the energy,” Rasmussen explains. The Bioenergy Centre can produce up to 8.3 megawatts of pow-er, 6.6 of which goes into the SaskPower grid to provide electricity to 5,000 homes. The remaining power goes back into the facility and some of it is used to heat glycol, which is piped to NorSask’s new Muhlbock six-zone Progressive Flo 1306 PRO continuous kiln. Using glycol instead of natural gas to heat the kiln reduces NorSask’s costs and its natural gas usage by 50-60 per cent, Rasmussen says. JUST THE BEGINNING With the Bioenergy Centre now almost fully operational, Rasmus-sen reflects on the entire process, and whether it might be feasible for other sawmills to construct similar bioenergy plants. “It’s a very expensive process,” she says. “As new mills are being constructed or are being upgraded, there is an opportunity for this, but probably more as their own source of heat and energy.” For projects like this, the local utilities need to be on board, and some utilities may need to make upgrades to accommodate different sources of power, Rasmussen says. In fact, SaskPower had to upgrade their system to accommodate the 6.6 megawatts from the Bioenergy Centre. “The thing is, in Saskatchewan, we’re under one Crown cor-poration. So, they’re the only company we can sell power to,” she explains. “We’re not like Alberta where they have distributed pow-er system where you can sell your excess power to your next door neighbour if you want to. “There’s very little financial support for these types of projects, and I think the only reason we got financial support for it is be-cause we’re 100 per cent Indigenous-owned,” she adds. “If you look at the majority of these types of bioenergy facilities across Canada, most of them are built to supply heat and energy to their own facility, not to resell, because it becomes quite expensive.” Consequently, to get additional bioenergy projects off the ground, Rasmussen believes more government support is re-quired. Saskatchewan, as a major agricultural producer, has a lot of potential for similar projects, but because natural gas is so read-ily available and cheap in Canada, it’s not often seen as an option. However, with the federal government’s carbon tax, it’s possible more bioenergy projects will take off as coal and natural gas be-come more expensive, she says. Regardless, the Bioenergy Centre will have a big impact on the Meadow Lake area, providing both environmental and economic benefits. “We see this as the start,” Rasmussen says. “Saskatchewan and Canada are in a very big way moving into the renewable ener-gy field. As an Indigenous company, we really see this as an op-portunity to figure out how to do this and how to participate in the provincial and national economy by producing energy that’s non-fossil fuel, not harmful to the environment.” • RecuDry® -Low-temperature belt dryer with heat recovery system RecuDry ® Maximum drying efficiency due to energy recovery system High energy saving of 35 -55% Low exhaust airflows and emissions www.stela.de 12 Canadian BIOMASS CB_Stela_Winter22_CSA.indd 1 WINTER 2022 2022-01-24 1:04 PM
Canadian Biomass Winter 2022: Page 12
