says Traquair. In the past, they’ve do-nated landscape material to four or five local schools and some community asso-ciations, as well as the City of Calgary BP Birthplace Forest. Wood heating The KOB biomass boiler burns 24 hours/day in wintertime. landscape mulch for other companies. “They are usually from somewhere in eastern Canada, but they have a na-tional account they could sell to in Cal-gary, Edmonton, or Vancouver. So they want to get a product that’s closer so it doesn’t cost them as much to ship it,” explains Hamman. The company is also involved with the local community through associa-tions such as the Clean Calgary Associa-tion and the Recycling Council of Alberta, Aside from mulch and animal bedding, a small portion of the clean, ground wood feeds a biomass boiler that allows workers to function comfortably inside the uninsulated cover-all units during winter. Installed in 2008 by Fink Ma-chine out of Enderby, British Columbia, the 540-kW KOB (Viessmann) Pyrot boiler is fully automated and came as a containerized package. Ecco chose the boiler because it’s a low-pressure system and therefore doesn’t require a steam en-gineer to operate it. “With a little bit of training, even a sales manager can learn to run it,” laughs Traquair. Wood fuel is supplied from a 45 cubic-metre Meridian silo. Occasionally, a stone or small metal piece will cause slagging or an auger to jam. But as long as the fuel is clean, the boiler “runs pretty darn well,” says Hamman. 20 Canadian BIOMASS July/August 2011
Canadian Biomass July/August 2011: Page 20
