Activity heating up in bioenergy sector.

• Author: Bradley, Douglas
• Position: FORESTRY

This year, bioenergy projects in Canada's forestry communities are on fast-forward. Fighting a strong loonie, a declining US housing market, rising oil prices, and high fibre and energy costs, biomass rich communities, entrepreneurs, sawmills, harvesters power companies, and pulp and paper mills have been exploring and implementing new bioenergy projects, either to bolster a conventional forestry operation or to start, up a new, energy-based one.

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You may not have heard much about it, because the bulk of the projects are small to medium-scale, and attract little press attention. But a look at recent progress in biomass forestry projects shows a hive of activity.

New cogeneration projects are cranking up in Northern Ontario and Quebec. Biomass heat and power projects in Quebec and Ontario are also on the rise.

As this article went to print, a new project for a 10 megawatt (MW) CHP project was about to be announced for a pulp and paper mill in Northern Ontario, and Hydro Quebec was about to issue a highly anticipated call for 100 MW for power using forest biomass.

Another hotbed of activity is the growth of the wood pellet industry. Many Canadian companies interested in developing pellet plants are relying initially on a guaranteed EU market as a driver. However, in future I expect sales. will increasingly go to domestic users.

One of the initiatives we're taking is GoPellets, a combined project of CANBIO and the Wood Pellet Association of Canada, which we expect to announce at our annual conference, Oct 6-8.

The initiative aims to develop the domestic pellet markets by lobbying for the right incentives and working with government to bring down barriers.

Heating with wood pellets offers substantial cost-savings - and replacing a conventional boiler with a pellet or wood chip boiler in a large, centrally-heated facility like a hospital or university, is a nobrainer. La Sarre Hospital in the Aurores Boreales region of Quebec has been using a biomass boiler for over 50 years - and it estimates cost savings of $12,000,000 in energy costs compared to conventional fuels during that time.

Energy partnerships with community and companies

Even in situations requiring an infrastructure overhaul, there is plenty of opportunity to introduce biomass heating.

District heating can be installed quickly via a central heat source connected to a mini-grid that encompasses a small local area, like a hospital, some houses and an industrial...