Hanwell Park Academy School, a kindergarten to Grade 8 facility that can house up to 550 students, utilizes a wood pellet boiler system. Photo: Mark Richard. down… Today, we still have redundan -cies and oil boilers to help with the peak heating,” Noël said. “In the winter, we are trying to maintain overnight temperatures of 23 degrees (C) when the outside tem-perature can be as low as minus 25 de-grees (C).” Noël said the project was tendered in the summer of 2024 and completed in time to be fired up in February. The instal -lation included reinforced concrete pads, new buffer tanks, new external silos and new exhaust flues. “The system is new to us, and over time, we will get a good sense of fuel con-sumption and pellets…. This year will be a good testament to that,” he said. Three Herz Firematic 350 wood pel -let boilers were installed at the nursery in separate heated greenhouse complexes. The Herz boilers are designed to be com -pact and sized to fit inside a normal boiler room. In the Kingsclear retrofit, the units were installed with a forklift. The two-piece boiler was assembled on-site. PUT TO THE TEST “We were quite surprised to see the system can handle close to 100 per cent of the nursery load. It has managed to handle the load quite well.” ruary 2025 was also the coldest in New Brunswick for years, with temperatures dipping below -20C over numerous nights. “Production costs for greenhouse seed -lings in February are prohibitive with oil heating. This year, we had to start a crop in February to make up some losses we had with a crop from last year.” “Greenhouse boilers have a busy night shift keeping the cold air from the seed -lings,” Levesque said. “We were quite sur-prised to see the system can handle close to 100 per cent of the nursery load. It has managed to handle the load quite well.” Almost 3 million seedlings were seeded in the greenhouse complexes this February, depending on biomass heat to keep the cold temperatures at bay. The seedlings are destined for reforestation on Crown Lands and helping private woodlot owners with their silviculture programs. “These seedlings sown in February will be shipped for planting in late June. Only one-third of our crops are grown in heated conditions and planted the same year,” Noël explained. Noël said using wood pellets to give the delicate seedlings a head start makes sense at the nursery. PELLET HEAT A GREAT FIT FOR GREENHOUSES Noël explained the provincial greenhous -es aren’t usually heated in February, but scheduling required an early start up. Feb-The Kingsclear Nursery, which has op -erated for more than 45 years, includes eight growing complexes with 85 green-houses and 19 outdoor crop-holding ar-eas. The 90-hectare facility employs up to 65 workers. Noël said the greenhouse modernization will include a new 110,000-square-foot ex-pansion to be heated with wood pellets. The new complex, now under construction, Canadian BIOMASS 9
Canadian Biomass Spring 2025: Page 9
