circulation pumps, natural gas back-up peaking boilers, and other equipment like a standby generator,” says Marco Fornari, manager of utilities for Prince George. “From that plant, we will be connecting approximately 10 buildings.” These in-clude the library, Civic Centre, Four Sea-sons, Art Gallery, Coast Inn, Coliseum, the emissions was a very important factor in public acceptance and support of the proj-ect,” says Fornari. strathcoNa’s diverse fuels Lower natural gas costs have drawn out the ROI for Strathcona’s system peaking plant, and City Hall. All of these structures were previously heated by hot water heat from natural gas-fired boilers. An electrostatic precipitator supplied by Wellons will improve the mill’s particu-late emissions. Additional air quality im-provements will be gained from reduced truck traffic leaving the mill to transport residue to pellet plants because more bio-mass will be consumed onsite for heat generation. “This reduction in particulate Ground has also been broken for a dis-trict heating system in Strathcona County, Alberta, at Sherwood Park’s Centre in the Park. It will keep nine build-ings cosy when complete: three municipal office buildings, a com-munity theatre, ice arena, swim-ming pool, and three condos. The made-to-order heating module is being built by Lambion Energy of Germany and will arrive in mid-September 2011. Two ad-ditional fuel containers will allow for three-plus days of fuel storage. “The equipment is being custom de-signed to accommodate local feedstocks,” says Norm Swonek, project manager of community energy systems for Strathcona County. “These include waste wood (pal-COMPLETE PLANTS AND MACHINES FOR THE RECYCLING INDUSTRY lets) from the commercial sector, agricul-tural residues such as straw from farmers, and oat hulls from Alberta Oats.” In addition, the system will accept wood pellets made by a local company us-ing a Doppstadt wood grinder and a pel-letizer from New Brunswick-based Pellet Systems International. The use of different fuels will be computer-controlled. “Each fuel…is programmed into the system, and when the fuel switches, the module will automatically adjust,” Swonek ex-plains. About 250 kilograms/hour of fuel and 1400 tonnes for the entire heating season (October to April) is expected to be required. A $1.5 million grant for the system from the Western Economic Diversi-fication Program went to both the Re-source Industry Suppliers Association and Strathcona County. They each are also contributing $675,000 to the proj-ect. When cost-return will be achieved is a matter of how current energy prices play out. “[Because] the system uses local fuels to offset natural gas, at the present cost of natural gas, the cost-return will have a much longer payback period than if the cost of natural gas were higher,” Swonek says. quesNel’s uNique system Drying With Fabric Belt Driers Modular plant system for drying of biomass, wood shavings, wood chips and more... AMANDUS KAHL GmbH & Co. KG SARJ Equipment Corp., Mr. Rick B. MacArthur 29 Golfview Blvd., Bradford, Ontario L3Z 2A6 Phone: 001-905-778-0073 Fax: 001-905-778-9613 [email protected] www.akahl.de DRYING GRINDING CONDITIONING PELLETING COOLING PACKING The City of Quesnel in British Colum-bia and Terasen Gas are moving forward on a final feasibility study of a proposed unique combined heat and power (CHP)/ district heating system, in cooperation with West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. and BC Hydro. “The Quesnel Community Energy System (QCES) is currently in a negotiation stage, and we are awaiting a number of final details before moving into a new round of assessment on costs,” says Quesnel economic development of-ficer April Cheng. “With the success-ful conclusion of. . .agreements and the engineering work, approval from the BC Utilities Commission will be required to proceed with the project. We are unsure, at this time, if the project will be opera-tional in 2012.” The plan is for both waste heat and residues from West Fraser’s Quesnel sawmill to be used to generate heat and electricity, a first in North America. The QCES is expected to provide 5.5 MW of heat to 22 industrial, municipal, com-mercial, and multi-dwelling residential SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 26 Canadian BIOMASS
Canadian Biomass September/October 2011: Page 26
