Meeting Industrial Energy Needs with Wood
By Chantal Hunter
January 2013
A lumber mill in British Columbia is using its wood by-products and an efficient small scale energy production technology to meet its energy needs.
At the Nechako Lumber Company in Vanderhoof, British Columbia, a newly-installed Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) system is set to provide environmentally-friendly energy for the mill’s operations.
Nechako’s sawmill and planer mill are co-located with a wood pellet facility and the new electricity generating company (Nechako Green Energy Ltd.) in an integrated industrial complex.
The ORC system will generate all of the needed electricity for the pellet plant and provide additional heat for sawdust drying. In fact, it is expected to produce 1.8 megawatts of electricity, or enough power to supply about 1,300 homes.
Funding received from Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan’s) Investments in Forest Industry Transformation (IFIT) program enabled the plant to purchase the ORC equipment from a commercial supplier.
“We wanted to find a way to be more energy and cost-efficient in our operation,” says Alan Fitzpatrick, General Manager of Nechako Lumber and President of Nechako Green Energy Ltd. “By capturing the waste heat, we are now using every bit of the wood fibre while leaving a very low carbon footprint.”
Organic Rankine Cycle Power
Larger imageInstallation of the Organic Rankine Cycle system at Nechako Green Energy nears completion.
An ORC system is a method of small-scale energy production. ORC systems are commonly used in Europe, where energy costs are higher than Canada, but are not commonplace in North America.
Simply stated, the system takes excess heat from the bioenergy system, which combusts by-products such as sawdust and bark to generate power.
ORC system technology uses an organic fluid that vaporizes at a lower temperature than the change from water to steam. The vapor then passes through a turbine to generate electricity. The cycle is complete when the fluid is cooled, condensed and brought back to the beginning of the loop.
In the case of the Nechako mill, excess heat from the existing bio-energy system heats oil for use in the ORC system to generate electricity and heat for the industrial complex. The thermal system will produce enough energy to meet the needs of the pellet plant adjacent to the sawmill while operating the mill’s lumber drying kilns.
“Waste heat is a widely available and untapped energy resource that can be harnessed for the production of clean energy,” says Jean-François Levasseur, IFIT Program Lead, NRCan.
ORC systems offer significant savings for wood manufacturing operations. There is no cost for fuel, nor for transportation or fuel handling costs, as this is all managed as part of the plant’s day-to-day operations.
ORC technology has a high potential to be replicated throughout the forest products sector because of the need for small scale heat and power and the access to wood residues.
A Model for the Future
The new system is part of an effort to improve the mill’s energy efficiency and its ability to generate renewable electricity. Potential future applications are being considered and include using the remaining heat for drying sawdust for wood pellet production.
“ORC technology is an efficient, clean and reliable way of producing electricity,” says Jean-François. “This project opens a whole new realm of possibilities for the Canadian forest industry.”
For more information, visit NRCan’s IFIT site.
To read about related articles, see Forestry Industry.
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