BioMASS update BC pellet mill moves to CHpp Toronto, ON – Nechako Green Energy and Pratt & Whitney Power Systems an-nounced plans at the CANBIO annual general meeting in mid-October to add a heat recovery power plant to its Premium Pellet operation in Vanderhoof, British Co-lumbia. Pratt & Whitney Power Systems has been awarded a contract to deliver a 2 MW biomass heat recovery power plant for Nechako Green Energy Ltd. The plant will provide clean, carbon-neutral power, and marks the first ever Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) installation in a forest prod-ucts facility built by Turboden in North America. Turboden is a Pratt & Whitney Power Systems company. “This biomass-based ORC unit is the first project of its kind in a Canadian mill, with significant potential for replication across the sector,” said Alan Fitzpatrick, president of Nechako Green Energy Ltd. “There is a tremendous opportunity to un-leash clean energy generation from biomass resources using this technology. This ORC unit will allows us to become much more energy and cost efficient.” The Turboden ORC unit includes a special evaporator/preheater and turbine in BrieF... n Dolbeau, QC Renewable energy producer Boralex Inc. is closing the door on its troubled Dolbeau wood-residue plant by perma-nently shutting the idle facility and tak-ing a financial write-off. The 28-mega-watt co-gen plant, which has operated sporadically since 2009, has been indef-initely closed since April, affecting 30 to 40 workers. The closing of AbitibiBowa-ter’s adjoining mill disrupted the supply of wood and sale of steam, forcing the company to look for alternatives. n abbotsforD, bC Biomass Secure Power Inc. says its first pellet plant will be constructed in Co-wichan Lake, British Columbia, and will quickly move to torrefied pellet produc-tion using proprietary technology. The plant will be built on a 30-acre site and will initially have one production line producing up to 250,000 tonnes of pel-lets per year. n Glenevis, ab Calgary based FireBox Energy Systems Ltd. will build a demonstration biomass facility on Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation Reserve #133. The John plant will cost an estimated $60 million and will gen-erate approximately 30 MW of clean, renewable, electrical energy. Construc-tion on the demonstration phase is ex-pected to start early in 2012 and to take approximately 13 months to complete. Once the project has been successfully commissioned, FireBox and partners will develop a 270 MW biomass facility on the same designated land. n Montreal, QC Boralex Inc. is selling its US-based bio-mass electric plants – including four in Maine – for $93 million to ReEnergy of Albany, New York. The Maine plants, which convert scrap wood to power, are in Ashland, Fort Fairfield, Livermore Falls and Stratton. The deal includes a facility in Chateauguay, New York. Premium Pellet’s Turboden ORC unit will generate 2 MW of carbon-neutral power. and will operate at 280 degrees Celsius, providing the pellet plant with 2 MW of renewable electrical power at max load. The plant produces 140,000 tonnes of high-quality, premium-grade wood pel-lets annually, and the ORC unit uses ther-mal oil from an existing biomass system to burn the mill’s residual hog fuel and waste bark, which would otherwise be sent to a landfill. GreenHouse adds Green Heat A Montreal greenhouse has installed a high-tech biomass heating system to cut costs and greenhouse emissions. Located just south of Montreal, the Les Serres Lefort Inc. specialty greenhouse unveiled its new heating system, designed and managed by Jean Gobeil & Associés, at an open house on November 18. The renewable energy system includes two high-performance 6 MW boilers from Compte-Fournier linked to an open-buffer tank of 1.3 M litres and a hot water dis-tribution system (provided by Starbrite Manufacturing) to heat the over 6.5 ha of greenhouses. This will also mark the North American premiere for the installation of a Compte-Fournier system. Les Serres Lefort’s biomass system is Compte-Fournier’s first North American installation. Look to the next issue of Canadian Biomass for a feature on this new biomass heating system and its operation. Canada’s forest biomass sector changes daily. Keep up at www.canadianbiomassmagazine.ca, through our weekly Bio-Blast enews, and on Twitter @canadianbiomass. 6 Canadian BIOMASS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011
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