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■ table of contents

www.woodbioenergymag.com

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FROM THE EDITORS Biomass Comes To Arizona

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UK ENERGY POLICY Trying To Come To Grips

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IN THE NEWS Drax Biomass Names New Chief

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COLVIN LOGGING Adding Chipping To The Mix

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SENECA SUSTAINABLE ENERGY Running Clean And Efficient

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PRODUCT NEWS Terex Makes Big Chipper Statement

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NOVO BIOPOWER Snowflake’s Comeback Kid

Cover photography: Novo BioPower (Jay Donnell) Seneca Sustainable Energy (Courtesy of SSE)

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Wood Bioenergy / June 2015

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table of contents ■

advertising index Advertiser Index is a free service for advertisers and readers.

The publisher assumes no liability for errors or omissions.

Volume 7

Number 3

26

Airoflex Equipment

13

563.264.8066

Amandus Kahl Hamburg

7

770 521 1021

American Pulverizer

38

314.781.6100

Andritz Feed & Biofuel

39

800.446.8629

Astec

23

423.867.4210

Bandit Industries

2

800.952.0178

Basic Machinery

15

888.522.7420

Biomass Engineering & Equipment

11

317.522.0864

CEM Machine

42

315.493.4258

Clariant

3

800.444.9566

CPM-Roskamp Champion

39

800.428.0846

Duratech Industries

41

888.795.1977

Evergreen Engineering

45

888.484.4771

ExpoBiomasa 2015

35

+34 975 239 670

Grecon

33

503.641.7731

Jenz GmbH

14

+49 0 5704 9409 0

Kice Industries

9

316.744.7151

Publishing Office Street Address ■ 225 Hanrick Street Montgomery, AL 36104-3317

Les Aciers J.P.

29

819.947.8291

Lundberg

33

425.283.5070

MEC

15

620.325.2673

Mailing Address ■ P.O. Box 2268 Montgomery, AL 36102-2268 Tel: 334.834.1170 ■ Fax: 334.834-4525

Metal Detectors

29

541.345.7454

Mid-South Engineering

14

501.321.2276

Morbark

48

800.831.0042

Editor-in-Chief ■ Rich Donnell Managing Editor ■ Dan Shell Senior Associate Editor ■ David Abbott Associate Editor ■ Jessica Johnson Associate Editor ■ Jay Donnell Art Director/Production Manager ■ Cindy Segrest Ad Production Coordinator ■ Patti Campbell Circulation Director ■ Rhonda Thomas

Peterson Pacific

47

800.269.6520

Twin Ports Testing

45

800.373.2562

Advertising Sales

U S Blades

44

800.862.4544

Universal Wearparts

44

800.647.8440

Uzelac

42

414.529.0240

West Salem Machinery

40

800.722.3530

Co-Publisher/Adv. Sales Manager ■ David H. Ramsey Co-Publisher/Executive Editor ■ David (DK) Knight Chief Operating Officer ■ Dianne C. Sullivan

North American Sales Representative Susan Windham ■ P.O. Box 2268 Montgomery AL 36102-2268 334.834.1170 ■ Fax: 334.834.4525 E-mail: windham.susan4@gmail.com International Sales Murray Brett ■ Aldea De Las Cuevas 66, Buzon 60 03759 Benedoleig (Alicante) Espana +34 96 640 4165 ■ Fax: +34 96 640 4022 E-mail: murray.brett.aba@gmail.com Classified Advertising Sales Bridget DeVane ■ Tel: 334.699.7837 ■ 800.669.5613 E-mail: bdevane7@hotmail.com A Hatton-Brown Publication Other Hatton-Brown Publications:

Timber Processing ■ Southern Loggin' Times ■ Timber Harvesting Panel World ■ Power Equipment Trade

Premier Tech Chronos

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418.867.8883

Process & Storage Solutions

46

866.354.7277

Rawlings Manufacturing

45

866.762.9327

Rotochopper

25

320.548.3586

Timber Products Inspections

41

218.461.2579

Wood Bioenergy (ISSN 1947-5306) is published six times annually by Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc., 225 Hanrick St., Montgomery, AL 36104. Wood Bioenergy is free to qualified readers in the United States, including owners, managers, supervisors and other key personnel. All non-qualified U.S. subscriptions are $50 per year, Canadian subscriptions are $60 and foreign subscription are $95 per year (U.S. funds). Subscriber Inquiries and Back Issue Orders—TOLL-FREE: 800.669.5613. Fax 888.611.4525. Subscribe or renew online: www.woodbioenergymagazine.com and click on the “Subscribe” button. When requesting change of address, please specify both old and new. Application to mail at periodical postage prices is pending at Montgomery, Ala. and at additional mailing offices.

Postmaster: Please send address changes to: Wood Bioenergy, P.O. Box 2419, Montgomery, AL 36102-2419 Publications Mail Agreement No. 40624074 Return Undeliverable CANADIAN Addresses To PO Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek Richmond Hill ON L4B 4R6 All advertisements for Wood Bioenergy are accepted and published by Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. with the understanding that the advertiser and/or advertising agency are authorized to publish the entire contents and subject matter thereof. The advertiser and/or advertising agency will defend, indemnify and hold any claims or lawsuits for libel violations or right of privacy or publicity, plagiarisms, copyright or trademark infringement and any other claims or lawsuits that may arise out of publication of such advertisement. Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. neither endorses nor makes any representation or guarantee as to the quality of goods and services advertised in Wood Bioenergy. Copyright ® 2015. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. Printed in USA.

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■ from the editors

Keeping It Local

Wood Bioenergy Solutions

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e’ve followed the Arizona wildfire and forest health issues closely for almost 20 years in our timber industry publications and in Wood Bioenergy. Disastrous and record-setting wildfires in 2002 and 2011—among the many lesser damaging conflagrations experienced every fire season—helped set the U.S. Forest Service (FS) on a course to address timberland conditions in the state that are ripe for devastating wildfires in many areas of the state.

Forest restoration efforts to help areas recover and reduce catastrophic wildfire risk in the region took a big step forward in mid April when the FS signed off on a final environmental impact statement approving restoration activities on 586,000 acres of the Coconino and Kaibab national forests in Arizona, including thinning, prescribed burning, watershed and road maintenance, grassland, spring and stream channel restoration, and habitat improvements. The projects are part of the groundbreaking 4 Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) that seeks to restore millions of acres of forestland in the region.

Critical to the 4FRI’s long-term success is the development of markets for low-grade material such as produce. This issue features biomass power producer Novo BioPower in Snowflake, Ariz., which started up in 2008, faltered through the downturn and has now been re-started by a local entrepreneur.

Bob Worsley—who sustained major property damage in 2002’s Rodeo-Chediski fire—led the development of what was initially the Snowflake White Mountain power plant, a 27 MW operation owned by Renegy.

After the facility was closed in March 2013, Worsley led a local group in acquiring it and re-starting it by August that year.

Such operations are critical in a state where the forest products industry almost disappeared after federal timber sale cutbacks in the ’80s and ’90s due to old-growth and spotted owl controversies. It’s truly unfortunate to see it took a series of disastrous wildfires to force a policy reversal on managing forests in the region.

(As an activist once said, city dwellers or retirees who move to the woods to get “closer to nature” quickly change their minds about opposing good timber management practices when standing in front of a million-dollar home with an $8 garden hose as a wildfire races toward them.)

Companies like Novo BioPower and Good Earth

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Power Arizona, which is working a large stewardship program restoring hundreds of thousands of acres, are making investments in local infrastructure to utilize the variety of raw materials coming from restoration projects.

Due to transportation costs, wood bioenergy production projects are most efficient when operating as close as possible to raw material sources. A big part of the solution when it comes to the question of restoring Arizona forests, wood bioenergy is also a local solution—in this case and many others.

This issue’s other cover story, Seneca Sustainable Energy in Eugene, Ore., is also a local success: Longtime lumber manufacturer builds the Northwest’s newest and cleanest-running biomass combined heat and power plant that started up in 2011.

When negotiating a power purchase agreement, Seneca had several options, but decided to sell to a local power utility with residential customers who live in nearby neighborhoods. “We felt strongly that if it was produced locally it should stay local,” says Seneca Sustainable Energy’s Todd Payne, who adds that officials with the Eugene Water & Electric Board also view the plant as a major local asset in case of a regional power emergency.

The Novo BioPower and Seneca Sustainable Energy feature articles are both prime examples of wood bioenergy solutions with major local support and positive outcomes— and both underline the importance of keeping it local.

Wood Bioenergy / June 2015

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■ in the news Drax Biomass Appoints Madden Drax Biomass announced Peter Madden as its CEO of U.S. operations and also announced its port facility in Baton Rouge, La. is in operation.

Madden brings nearly 30 years of experience in the forestry industry and will guide the overall strategy and oversee day-to-day operations in the U.S. He most recently served as the vice president of Renewable Energy and Supply Chain for Plum Creek Timber Co. Madden began his career in forestry in 1988 as a field technician with the Westvaco Corp. in South Carolina.

In 1992, he joined Georgia-Pacific Corp. where he held various positions including operations manager, procurement manager and senior financial analyst.

Drax Biomass is a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Drax Group plc, a major electricity generator in the United Kingdom.

Drax Biomass has constructed wood pellet manufacturing facilities in Amite, Miss. and Morehouse, La. as well as a Gulf Regional Hub storage and export facility in Baton Rouge. By 2016, Drax anticipates employing more than 200 full-time U.S. employees.

Drax also reported that its pellet storage, handling and loading facilities at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge are complete, fully staffed and receiving pellets daily, with the first load on the MV TBC Princess. This first vessel forms part of the commissioning process, enabling Drax to test its ship loading equipment.

“We are extremely pleased that our port facilities are up and running,” says new Drax Biomass CEO Madden. “This complex project was delivered on time and to budget and forms a vital part of Drax’s ambitious plan to reduce its carbon emissions by at least 12 million tons per year.

The annual capacity of the facilities at Baton Rouge is around 3 million tonnes. The first vessel to

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use the Drax port facilities is a “handy size” and will be able to hold approximately 25,000 metric tonnes. Ultimately, this vessel will be followed by increasing sized vessels from Supra to the largest vessel the port has been designed to load—a Panamax. The two iconic domes on site can each store 40,000 tonnes.

Drax Signals Move Into Heat Sector Drax has acquired Billington Bioenergy Ltd (BBE), the UK’s second largest wood pellet distributor. The move signals the power generator’s intention to enter the country’s growing biomass heat sector.

“This is an exciting opportunity to help transform the UK heat market in the same way we have made the UK power market so much less dependent on high carbon fossil fuels,” says Drax Group CEO Dorothy Thompson. “Biomass is a cost-effective, low carbon and dependable source of heat which homes and businesses can rely on.

BBE is a great business, it shares our customer service ethos and unswerving commitment to sustainability so I am delighted to be working with them.”

BBE will continue to run from its Liverpool office, and all the team and existing arrangements will remain unchanged.

Proposed Idaho Pellet Mill Will Export Centennial Renewable Energy of Idaho (CRE) announced is has signed agreements to purchase land for its first wood pellet project in the state and is now commencing engineering design with its lead design build contractor Dome Technology.

CRE is constructing a 160,000 metric ton per year wood pellet plant to produce pellets to the ENPlus A2 standard. CRE’s funding advisor CHP Ventures has secured development funds to take the

project to financial close, according to a report.

The CRE facility has been developed on the fundamental principle of synergistic use of wood production residues. CRE’s projects are designed to promote economic sustainability in rural communities, decrease the carbon footprint through biomass energy production, improve forest health, and decrease the risk of wildfire to communities.

CRE has selected Dome Technology as its lead contractor to design and build the pellet mill. David Adams, CEO Dome Technology, comments, “Dome Technology has had a great deal of experience in designing and constructing wood pellet storage facilities in the U.S., Canada and Europe—the largest being approximately 284,000 metric tons of storage for Drax Power in Yorkshire, England. It is exciting to see CRE bringing similar vision and technology to our own back yard.”

Portucel Soporcel Begins Construction Portucel Soporcel Group held a golden shovel ground-breaking ceremony March 27 for the construction of its pellet manufacturing plant in Greenwood, SC, according to a report of The Greenwood Partnership Alliance. The facility, which will produce the Colombo Energy brand, should be completed in the third quarter of 2016. It represents a global investment estimated at $110 million USD (approximately €100 million) and will create 70 jobs.

The ceremony was presided over by Group CEO, Diogo da Silveira, and included the presence of a delegation of state authorities, namely the Lt. Governor of South Carolina and Greenwood County officials.

“Although pellet production is a new venture for us, we believe that we are entering a sector with great potential for growth, one which allows us to move forward with our

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in the news ■

goal of internationalization and diversification of the Group’s industrial base, and even more so in a country which is so prominent in the field of forestry-based products,” da Silveira comments.

Colombo Energy will have a manufacturing capacity of 460,000 tons and will benefit from the favorable conditions of Greenwood County’s forestry raw materials and available energy. The Portucel Soporcel Group has already secured sales of 70% of its production through the signing of 10-year fixed-priced supply contracts targeted entirely to the European industrial market.

Portucel Soporcel Group is the European leader and sixth worldwide in the manufacture of uncoated woodfree printing and writing paper, and the largest European producer, and fifth worldwide in bleached eucalyptus kraft pulp.

competitive alternative to crude oil-based fuels, according to the company.

Flagship will provide financial and strategic expertise as Red Rock moves toward construction of a commercial-scale refinery and

secures additional partnerships, funding and customers. Flagship partner Brian Baynes, Ph.D., led the investment and will join Red Rock’s board of directors.

Last year was pivotal for Red Rock’s move toward commercial-

Flagship Ventures Invests In Red Rock Red Rock Biofuels LLC, unveiled a partnership with Flagship Ventures that sets the stage for the construction of its first commercial scale refinery in Lakeview, Ore. As part of this partnership, Flagship Ventures, a leading venture capital and venture creation firm focused on innovations in health care and sustainability, will invest in Red Rock, assume a seat on the Board of Directors and serve as a strategic advisor for future fundraising efforts.

Red Rock takes waste biomass from forests and sawmills, and using a proprietary process transforms it into domestically produced jet, diesel and naphtha fuels.

The company’s process begins with the gasification of woody biomass to produce syngas, which is then cleaned and sent to a FischerTropsch unit where it is converted to a high grade, renewable syncrude. Finally, standard upgrading refines the syncrude to yield renewable jet, diesel and naphtha fuels which provide a lower carbon, cost

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■ in the news

scale production. The company received a $70 million DPA Title III award from the U.S. departments of Agriculture, Energy and Navy to help build its $200 million refinery.

The refinery, slated to begin construction this summer, will convert approximately 140,000 dry tons of woody biomass into 15 million gallons per year of renewable, liquid transportation fuels. Also in 2014, Southwest Airlines agreed to purchase approximately 3 million gallons per year of Red Rock’s low carbon, renewable jet fuel.

“We formed Red Rock Biofuels in response to widespread and devastating wildfires in the Western U.S. and the rising demand for drop-in, cost competitive renewable jet and diesel fuels,” says Terry Kulesa, co-founder and CEO of Red Rock Biofuels. “By removing and repurposing the excess biomass that fuels destructive forest fires, we see great potential in the ‘waste to value’ sector, creating cleaner fuels, healthier forests and delivering sustainable biofuels.”

Throughout 2015, Red Rock expects to continue expanding both its team and geographic footprint through additional refineries as renewable fuels.

Markinch Biomass Opens In Scotland A major addition to the Scottish Government’s plan for a more sustainable energy future in Scotland was reached in March with Fergus Ewing MSP, Minister for Business, Energy and Tourism, officially opening RWE’s Markinch Biomass Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant in Fife, Scotland.

The state-of-the-art plant replaces an outdated coal and gas fired CHP power station on the site of premium paper and board manufacturer Tullis Russell. It represents a reduction in fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions by around 250,000 tonnes per annum, delivering a major contribution to the UK’s renewable energy generation targets, according to RWE.

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The new facility has an installed capacity of up to 65 MW and provides all of Tullis Russell’s electricity and steam requirements, with excess electricity generation being fed into local networks to fuel around 45,000 homes. The biomass CHP plant is fueled by approximately 90% recovered wood waste and approximately 10% virgin wood sourced from sustainably managed forests.

The Markinch CHP Plant has also supported the safeguarding of 500 jobs at Tullis Russell, which has been a major employer in Fife for more than 206 years. RWE worked in partnership with Tullis Russell, the Scottish Government, Fife Council and local community and community councils throughout the construction of the plant.

More than 600 temporary jobs were created during the construction process and around 40 permanent jobs have been created at Markinch and the Offsite Fuel Processing Facility at Cardenden.

The plant is fueled by both recovered and virgin wood, with virgin logs being chipped at the former Bowhill Colliery site in Cardenden. Operated by The Purvis Group, the site chips, stores and supplies fuel to Markinch. Each month, the facility chips up to 6,500 tonnes of virgin wood supplied from a number of Forestry Commission Scotland certified sources. The site can also store 25,000 tonnes of recovered wood each year.

The state-of-the-art boiler system was designed and built by Finnish company Valmet As part of the project, RWE Innogy UK and Tullis Russell invested in landscaping initiatives to improve the area surrounding the biomass CHP plant, including the creation of a woodland habitat. The area has been planted with more than 1,000 trees, including birch, aspen and oaks plus more than 1,500 shrubs and Bird Cherry and Goat Willow species.

Once mature, the area will support wildlife.

Uttar Pradesh Forest Gains Certification Third-party certifier SCS Global Services announced that Uttar Pradesh Forest Corp. (UPFC) has met all of the requirements necessary to earn certification for responsible forestry under the internationally recognized Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard.

The Forest Management Certification encompasses 13 forest divisions covering a total forest area of 349,296 hectares. This area represents roughly 40% of the FSC-certified forest area in South Asia.

UPFC manages all aspects of forestry operations within the State of Uttar Pradesh, located in northern India bordering on Nepal. The SCS audit team, consisting of seven professionals representing a variety of disciplines, completed a six-day field and office audit of the forest management operations as part of the assessment. The interdisciplinary team collected data, analyzed records, conducted interviews with staff and key stakeholders, and carried out a stakeholder analysis.

In each of UPFC’s forest divisions, the principle silvicultural practice for natural forest areas is conservation, with removal of only dead, dying and decayed trees.

Planned harvests are practiced only in designated plantation areas. Areas containing rare, threatened or endangered species are recognized as sanctuaries and national parks where any form of extraction is prohibited.

EC Has Concerns About Lynemouth In February The European Commission opened an investigation to assess whether UK plans to support the conversion of the Lynemouth coal power plant to operate entirely on biomass are in line with EU state aid rules. The Commission will investigate to make sure that the public funds used to support the project are limited to

Wood Bioenergy / June 2015

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■ in the news

what is necessary and do not result in overcompensation. It will also assess whether the positive effects of the project in achieving EU energy and environmental objectives outweigh potential competition distortions in the market for biomass.

In December 2014 the UK announced plans to subsidize the conversion of the coal-fired Lynemouth power plant to operate on biomass. The plant would have the capacity to generate 420 MW of renewable electricity running exclusively on wood pellets. The project would receive support in the form of a so-called “Contract for Difference” fixing a certain sales price (“strike price”) for the electricity. This means that the generator of the Lynemouth power plant will earn money from selling its electricity into the market.

When the average wholesale price

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of electricity is below the strike price, the generator will receive a top-up payment. According to UK estimates, the project would operate until 2027 and supply about 2.3 TWh of electricity per year.

The plant would require approximately 1.5 million tonnes of wood pellets per year mainly sourced from the U.S. and Canada.

In its preliminary analysis, the Commission considered that the parties’ financial calculations and estimates regarding key cost parameters may be too conservative.

These parameters, including the load factor of the plant (i.e. the actual electricity produced in a year compared to the maximum possible), its efficiency and the cost of wood pellets, significantly affect the project’s rate of return. At this stage, the Commission therefore has concerns that the actual rate of return could be higher than the

parties estimate and could lead to overcompensation.

Moreover, the amount of wood pellets to be imported from overseas is considerable, as compared to the volume of the global wood pellets market. Subsidizing such a large volume of wood pellets could significantly distort competition in the biomass market. The Commission is therefore also concerned that on balance the measure’s negative effects on competition could outweigh its positive effect on achieving EU 2020 targets for renewable energy.

Foley Timber Puts Up Timberlands Foley Timber and Land Co., which owns and manages 560,000 acres of timberlands in north central Florida, is exploring the sale of substantially all of its business as-

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in the news ■

sets and operations. The company’s 876 square miles of timberlands are centrally located between Tallahassee and Gainesville along Florida’s Gulf Coast.

The sale offers the opportunity to acquire timberland operations and related assets that generate significant cash flow through the superior management of highly productive timberlands on contiguous land in an attractive market, according to the company. Foley is majority-owned by company Chairman, Robert Day, and its President, Howard Leach.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity to acquire a premier tract of timberland and related operations in a growing market, supported by a track record of sustainable harvesting, deep customer relationships and long-standing customer supply agreements,” Leach says.

In 1994, a limited partnership was formed to acquire select Florida lands from Procter & Gamble. With the land’s proximity to the community of Foley and former ties to P&G’s Land and Timber division, as well as emphasizing the sustainable timber operations that would continue under the new ownership, the partnership called the business Foley Timber and Land Co.

Over the past 20 years Foley reports it has harvested nearly 23 million tons of wood and has planted more than 224 million trees on 280,000 acres. On average, Foley reforests about 14,000 acres per year, which includes the planting of 10 million trees per year.

ALC Members Lobby Congress, Air Issues More than 60 members of the American Loggers Council met in Washington March 18-21 in a coordinated effort to present issues important to the timber harvesting industry to lawmakers. Caterpillar Forest Products, John Deere, Forestry Mutual Insurance and the Southern Loggers Cooperative also sent representatives to the gathering.

Scores of Capitol Hill visits included discussions on major issues such as the Youth Careers in Logging Act, truck weight reform, comprehensive Forest Service timber management reform, and fire suppression funding on federal lands. ALC members were briefed on these four issues by ALC staff and heard a presentation from Frank Gladics pertaining to possible reform of the USFS Small Business Administration (SBA)

setaside program for timber sales.

Visits included a face-to-face with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to discuss the merits of his Flame Act Amendment that has been introduced in the Senate. It would help eliminate the practice of “fire-borrowing” by the Forest Service, which takes dollars from other budget line items to cover catastrophic fire events and does not leave the agency the funds it needs to perform land management activities that would help alleviate the occurrence of catastrophic fires.

Other issues discussed included the reintroduction of the Right to Haul Act, which would allow state legal weight tolerances to travel on interstate highways, and the Youth Careers in Logging Act, which has been reintroduced in both the House and Senate as HR 1215 and S 694, respectively.

In addition to legislative visits, members gathered at a Friday afternoon briefing to hear presentations from Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), who chairs the House Resources Committee Subcommittee on Public lands and the Environment. Other presenters included Bryan Rice, Forest Service Director of Land Management, and Bill Imbergamo, Director of the Fed-

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■ in the news

eral Forest Resource Coalition.

Both Caitlin Rayman, Director of the Office of Freight Management and Operations with the Federal Highway Weight Administration, and Luke Loy, Senior Engineer for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Vehicle and Roadside Operations Div., were on hand to discuss the latest CSA issues and the long-awaited comprehensive truck size and weight study that should be released soon.

Discussions concluded with Candace Schnoor from John Deere giving insight into the economic outlook for the forestry sector in coming years, and Kevin Thieneman, President of Caterpillar Forest Products, challenging ALC to work with partners to improve the image of logging and its ability to attract and retain new workers.

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Wood Resource Recovery Sues Gainesville Renewable Energy Center A major supplier for Gainesville, Fla.’s biomass power plant has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Gainesville Renewable Energy Center (GREC), the company operating the plant and selling power to the City of Gainesville, after GREC restricted the types of biomass it would accept.

Biomass producer Wood Resource Recovery (WRR) LLC terminated its contract with WRR is a major supplier to GREC plant.

GREC and filed suit for more than $5 million in damages after GREC officials said the facility would no longer accept municipal yard waste or any biomass from lands zoned or classified as “agricultural.”

According to WRR owner Bill Gaston (WB, August 2013), those restrictions affect more than a third of his raw material supply, and such exemptions were never in the contract. Such actions make it impossible for WRR to continue to do business with GREC under the contract, Gaston says, though the power plant is still able procure fuel from WRR on a purchase-order basis.

Wood Bioenergy / June 2015

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in the news ■

Officials with GREC have said the lawsuit has no basis and WRR’s claims are inaccurate and without merit, but have refused to comment further because of the pending litigation.

According to a statement released

by WRR’s legal team, WRR’s yard waste volume was included as proof of fuel supply when GREC was gaining regulatory approval and financing for the 102.5MW plant that

started up in 2013. Under terms of the contract, WRR was supplying 264,000-277,000 dry tons of biomass annually.

Removing yard waste—WRR also operates a major tree service in the area as well—from the list of allowable materials is equivalent to losing years of sales, WRR's legal team said. According to the statement, GREC also asked WRR to screen fines from raw ma-

terial that were thought to be causing operational problems at the plant that were later unfounded, yet WRR had already made investments in screening equipment.

WRR’s legal team says representatives of the companies tried to work out the disagreement since GREC changed material specs last year, but mounting losses forced Gason and WRR to file the suit.

June 2015 / Wood Bioenergy

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■ biomass power

Innovative Design Boosts Efficiency

Seneca Meeting Goals

By Dan Shell EUGENE, Ore. he Pacific Northwest’s newest biomass-fueled combined heat and power facility here is running like a champ and providing renewable power for 13,000 local households. Receiving the facility’s final Title V operating permit from a local air quality authority earlier this year, Seneca Sawmill Co. Vice President and General Manager Todd Payne gained a measure of vindication when it was confirmed the company’s state-of-theart combined biomass heat and power plant—Seneca Sustainable Energy—had been in full compliance with all air quality regulations since it started up in 2011.

Located in a highly environmentally-conscious community, the plant drew some opposition from small but vocal groups and had to pass multiple regulatory hurdles during development. “But in the end it was acknowledged we’ve always been in compliance with our permits, even though some local groups have tried to make people believe differently,” Payne says.

Payne, who headed up the project to build the Northwest’s cleanest-running biomass power plant, notes that Lane County sets high air quality standards, “But anything short of exceeding those standards would have been unacceptable to us. We live and work here, after all.

So we set very high standards for this plant,” he says.

In developing and designing the biomass plant, Seneca officials used the same approach that has brought the company’s Seneca Sawmills lumber operations legendary status on the West Coast—complete focus on quality, accuracy and efficiency that exceeds expectations.

“When we set out to build the plant, we knew it wasn’t going to be an average, run-of-the mill facility;

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not only were we held to strict standards externally, but we also held ourselves to strict standards—we wanted to employ as much technology and efficiency as we do in our sawmills,” Payne says.

Seneca personnel toured other biomass power plants around the country and tried to take the best concepts and practices they saw and incorporate it into their own facility. “The design really developed from an internal group with some outside engineering help,” Payne says, citing O&S Contractors and Wellons as key partners.

“Wellons did a turnkey power plant, so from the boiler on out through emissions control system it was their design, but it had to fit within our footprint and what we wanted to do,” Payne says. He adds that thanks to Seneca’s due diligence and the quality of vendors and suppliers who worked on the project, “We ended up with very few surprises in the end, just a few modifications and simple changes was all.”

Two key design objectives stand out at Seneca Sustainable Energy: Extensive automation that greatly reduces manpower requirements, and a noticeable cleanliness and neatness throughout the plant even four years after it began operations.

The automation is apparent in the fuel handling system, where truck drivers operate the truck dump and also log in their load data—information that the fuel handling system uses to direct raw material to the proper side of the main fuel pile.

Compared to many wood bioenergy facilities, the cleanliness is striking, the result of a requirement to operate a fully enclosed fuel handling system from truck dump to the fuel building. “Every place where we have a material handoff from one system or conveyor to another, we pull negative air pressure, so the

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Seneca Vice President Todd Payne, left, and Jim Munyon, biomass plant operations supervisor

fine particulates suspended in the air get pulled out, removed to the baghouses and eventually back to the boiler,” Payne says.

The troughing belt conveyors that make up much of the handling system leading to the fuel building are also enclosed—with a small box chain conveyor below to catch anything falling off the bottom of the belt.

The design with cleanliness built in pays off: “There’s nothing on the ground, so we don’t have any cleanup issues,” Payne says.

Incentives Announced in January 2009, the $65 million plant was operational by April 2011, producing 19.8 MW of renewable power. The Seneca organization had looked at bioenergy projects off and on in the past, but by 2007-8 the combination of government incentives and renewable power sales outlook “made it all come together for us,” Payne says. “And not only those factors, but we also needed additional steam to dry a greater portion of our lumber,” he adds.

“What better way to do that than using a renewable resource to create that thermal energy while also creating renewable power?” Payne continues. “We see the plant as a natural extension of our overall business, which is renewable.”

The project qualified for both the Oregon state business energy tax credit (BETC) and a federal renewable energy investment tax credit, two drivers that made the plant possible. A 15-year agreement with the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) allows the utility to meet future demand and renewable portfolio standard requirements.

Automated truck dump features secure operator's booth.

Control room automation enables monitoring and control of multiple areas and operations throughout the plant.

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Oregon Dept. of Energy energy conservation program, recovering a portion of the $245,000 cost to install variable frequency drive soft start motors at the plant’s well water pump system, boiler feed water pumps, baghouse fan and hog motor controls.

Production The plant’s raw materials, a mixture of dry and green, are sourced from Seneca’s four sawmills, plus biomass from the company’s 165,000 acre sustainably managed tree farm. As much as 75% of the power plant’s raw material comes from its sawmill operations, mostly in the form of bark.

While there’s plenty of additional fuel available on the local and regional market, Payne says the amount Seneca could generate internally factored into the planning process and overall plant size and capacity determinations. “We wanted to be able to generate all the raw material ourselves and not be beholden to the local market,” Payne says, adding the sawmill operations are producing more fuel than the power plant needs.

“We also buy fuel on the open market because we market our residuals in many cases to a higher value use,” Payne notes. “But if we ever had to source it all internally, we have the ability to do so.”

Incoming raw material loads go to a driver-activated Phelps truck dump featuring Rice scale system.

The driver operates the dump system in a secured operator room that drivers can only access via pass code to enter their information and activate the dump.

Each load is sampled for moisture content; material that needs Wellons provided turnkey power plant system, including boiler and emissions control system. additional reduction goes to a Jeffrey hog and Acrowood screening system. Fuel handling conveyors were supplied by “We were fortunate in that we had two potential local CTC; Pacific Building Systems provided the fuel storconsumers, and we’re also located near a BPA line that age building; and the reclaim systems inside are from provided access to regional customers,” Payne says.

Basic Machinery. Clarke’s Sheet Metal and B&R Sheet “But we felt strongly that if it was produced locally it Metal provided much of the ducting and fan infrastrucshould stay locally, and EWEB likes the idea of having ture. a local power source like us in case of a major outage.”

The fuel building is divided in half: dry fuel on one Seneca Sustainable Energy also benefited from an

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Used GE turbine was fully reconditioned by TurboCare

side, green on the other, and two reclaimers on each side allow the plant to consume fuel out of the piles at whatever rate needed.

“We test every load that comes in for moisture, so we have a very good daily track record of what our moisture contents are and what (fuel) products to put on each side,” Payne says. The fuel handling system is automatic, delivering fuel to either the dry or green side depending on data entered by drivers at the truck dump.

The BMC HD-3668 linear reclaimers are designed to handle up to 50 tons/hr. each of variable woody biomass and are automatically controlled from the MCC or by an on-board Allen-Bradley PLC for precise adjustment. Reclaimer outfeed is measured and the information relayed to the boiler feed control system, providing the capability adjust the reclaim rate from each unit using variable frequency drives.

“It all starts with good fuel and proper boiler efficiency,” Payne emphasizes. “We’re mixing our green and dry fuel in real time based on efficiency numbers at the boiler, and we’re able to make adjustments on the fly.”

Wellons provided the 200,000 lbs./hr. 6-cell boiler.

“This boiler allows a lot of flexibility in taking the plant down to minimum base load during off-peak hours and taking it up to peak load during peak hours,” Payne says, noting the plant’s 6 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon.-Sat. peak hours schedule that requires a regular ramping up to peak, dropping down to base load then ramping up again.

Wellons also designed the emissions control system that features vertical cyclones (multiclones) that dissipate energy and drop out heavier ash, followed by a four-field electrostatic precipitator. “Most facilities operate with a two- or three-field ESP, but we wanted to go beyond that,” Payne says, noting that up to 25% of the project’s cost went to air emission control equipment and technology.

The plant’s used GE turbine rated at 19.8 MW was supplied by Wellons as part of its overall package, and fully reconditioned by TurboCare. The system is a dual extraction unit with ports feeding steam to the sawmills for dry kiln and process heat.

Wellons supplied the boiler and air emissions control systems, while Seneca’s internal programmers and controls personnel did the controls for the fuel handling system. A diesel-fired 1 MW backup generator allows operators to take the plant down efficiently in case of emergency or planned outage.

According to an Oregon Dept. of Energy report, most traditional power generation facilities have efficiency ratings from 35%-60%. The Seneca Sustainable Energy facility has an 80% efficiency rating.

“Our company has been here 60 years, and we’re fully rooted in the community,” Payne says. “We expect Seneca Sustainable Energy to be a long-term addition to our operations that will continue to provide benefits to the local community as well as us.”

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â– biomass power

Snowflake Power

No Putting It Out

By Jay Donnell

SNOWFLAKE, Ariz. n 2002, the Rodeo-Chediski fire burned more than 460,000 acres and forced the evacuation of many local communities in northern Arizona. The fire went right through a property in the woods owned by Bob Worsley. It also devastated ecosystem resources and ponderosa pine stands on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation and Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. The remaining destruction occurred on private land. That fire led Worsley, a state senator and an entrepreneur who had founded companies such as SkyMall, to question

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the way Arizona was managing its forests and consequently wasting the wood resource. He decided to do something about it.

Worsley led the development of what would become the Snowflake White Mountain Power plant, a 27 MW operation owned by Renegy, LLC. The biomass power plant began commercial operations in June 2008, fueled not only with area forest thinnings, but also using a paper sludge byproduct (that was previously landfilled) from the adjacent Catalyst Paper Corp. recycle mill. Renegy sold its electrical power

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B&W boiler started up in 2008.

output to Arizona Public Service and Salt River Project, Arizona’s two largest electric utility companies.

The new plant also shared certain resources such as boiler feed water pumps and compressed air with the neighboring Catalyst Snowflake coal plant.

Worsley was mostly out of the project when tightening credit markets contributed to the operation going into bankruptcy in 2010. Later that year it sold to the Phoenix-based investment firm, Najafi, which proceeded to run the plant as Snowflake Power LLC. However in October 2012, the paper mill closed and

the coal plant shut down, leaving the owners in a double-bind, and they subsequently shut down the biomass power plant in March 2013.

Enter Bob Worsley again, who led the effort to purchase and re-start the biomass power plant in August 2013 and formed Novo BioPower. They also purchased the idled coal plant (which remains down today).

Bob’s son, Brad, serves as the president of the company. Randy Kreger, who had worked at the Snowflake biomass and coal power plants, serves as plant managing director.

The plant currently has 38 employees and when the plant is not operating they bring in 20-25 contractors to do maintenance. Novo budgets two one-week outages per year and two down days per month.

It didn’t fill the 300 jobs that the closure of the paper mill caused, but Novo BioPower has certainly chipped in. The facility has a large multiplier effect on the local economy, ranging from the sourcing of

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Diverse raw material mix keeps plant operators on their toes.

raw materials within 150 miles of this facility to bringing in labor for repair maintenance within 50100 miles.

Raw Materials “We are a unique biomass facility in that we don’t live next to an abundant biomass byproduct,” Brad comments. “Most of the biomass that we procure is actually biomass that was harvested for the purpose of having biomass.”

About half of the raw material comes from pre-commercial thinnings, mostly sub 5 in. diameter wood that needs to be taken out of the forest. Another 30% comes from pinyon-juniper thinnings. It’s an invasive species that has taken over the grasslands in northern Arizona.

Many local ranchers and the Forest Service want that material removed for water shed improvement and grass improvement.

The remaining 20% comes from valley waste in the Phoenix area, especially from citrus orchards that are constantly being turned over and removed. “It’s a unique mix of low value, low quality fuel,” Worsley says. “Because of that we put in a (Babcock & Wilcox Co. (B&W)) bubbling fluidized bed boiler so that we can handle the difference in sizing and the impurities that are inherent in the wood we bring in.”

A most recent development is that Novo BioPower has partnered with one of the largest loggers in Arizona, Tri Star Logging, and lumber manufacturer Vaagen Brothers of Colville, Wash., and started up a sawmill operation on site (Novo Star Wood Products) that will

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process 20-30 loads of logs a day coming from federal government forests and which will generate a significant waste stream of higher quality biomass.

Several other logging contractors, such as Wirta Logging and Walker Brothers, supply fuel chips to the power plant, which receives about 55 loads a day.

Chips usually will sit in the yard for no more than 30-45 days. “If we’ve got a month to a month and a half of inventory we’re doing well,” Worsley explains.

“Often times we’re operating on half a month or less of inventory and that’s not ideal.”

It has been a long hard road to get enough fuel in the doors at Novo BioPower at the right price and there have been many challenges. Since there isn’t an abundant byproduct market, the company is absorbing totals costs of the fuel. “You really have to operate well to bring in fuel at a price that makes this economic,” Worsley says.

Another major challenge is getting the different types of fuel to mesh together. There is an excessive amount of dirt with the different types of fuel coming in. “The difference between a pine chip and juniper grinding is significant,” Worsley explains. “Getting those to mesh and go through the same processing facility, getting it into the boiler through all the tubes and conveyers has been a challenge. We just live in a harsh environment with a harsh fuel.” But, Worsley, adds, they are able to operate at a steady base load all of the time.

And meanwhile the benefit to the national forest is immense. In 2011, the Wallow fire consumed more than 500,000 acres in eastern Arizona, making it the largest in the state’s history, surpassing the Rodeo-Chediski.

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Cat wheel loaders are workhorses in wood fuel yard.

These fires finally alerted regional and national authorities of the need for proper management and thinning of the forests. These efforts are now producing hundreds of thousands of bone dry tons of biomass annually through various thinning and stewardship activities.

“The impact on the forest is massive because we’re going in and taking out pre-commercial—the stuff that is creating an unhealthy forest, that’s creating high risk of fire and high risk of beetle, that is taking the nutrients and water out of the soil that’s needed for more healthy trees,” Worsley emphasizes.

“We’ve burned a quarter of the largest pine forest in the world in less than 10 years,” Worsley adds. “The forest is dying unless somebody steps up and does something about it.”

Worsley recently toured some facilities and the forest landscape in the Northwest U.S. and couldn’t believe the amount of slash material left in the forest. “We take that and make something of it,” he says. “We create jobs and power and put it on the grid. It’s burned in a highly controlled environment with baghouses and stack and ash handling so that we’re burning all day long and you can’t even see the emissions off our stack.

When you do the controlled burning in the forest you put a white haze over the entire forest.”

Process Flow Primary contractor Tri Star Logging chips or grinds material with a new Bandit Beast chipper and grinder and hauls material to Novo on Caterpillar trucks for weigh-in. Novo takes a sample because they pay on a

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bone dry ton. Material comes off at the big truck tipper.

A new Cat 834K wheel dozer purchased through Empire Southwest pushes the wood fuel to two reclaim piles, where a reclaim rake draws the steady requirement for the boiler, going through a series of conveyors that will cross over a hog to handle oversized material and through two magnets before heading up to the ninestory boiler.

The final conveyor lifts the blended fuel to a height of 92 ft. where it is stored in a fuel bin before delivery into the boiler. A Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) open-bottom bubbling fluidized bed boiler is lined with more than 23,000 feet of 3 in. diameter tubes carrying water and steam, which exit the boiler at 900° and 850 pounds per square inch.

The organic ash refuse from the bed of sand is taken through the dust collector and baghouse and brought out. It’s wetted, taken to the landfill and buried.

The steam created by the boiler is forced against the blades of a GE turbine, reaching a velocity 3,600 rpm, which in turn spins the GE generator creating 27 MW of “green” electrical power. Exhaust air from the boiler is forced through the baghouse emission control towers which capture and remove various known emissions.

Superheated steam from the turbine condenses back to water and is cooled in towers for reintroduction into the boiler.

Arizona Public Services and Salt River Project each take 50% of the production. While this is APA’s area of service, Novo BioPower wheels the power for SRP about 30 miles to Sugarloaf where it goes onto their network.

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â– energy policy

UK Renewable Energy

Riding The Roller Coaster

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hrough EU and UK political and regulatory policy interventions, renewable fuel (e.g. wood pellets) has been incentivized as a vehicle to help de-carbonize the energy sector. Conversion of existing coal-firing electricity plants to solid biomass fuel is the quickest and most cost-effective method for the UK to make significant renewable energy gains. Infrastructure investment and private sector relationships have been increasing on both sides of the Atlantic to the extent that the U.S. is now the largest supplier of industrial wood pellets to both the UK and the EU (60% market share). When the final numbers are tallied, the U.S. was expected to ship wood pellets with a value of approximately $530 million (Free On Board basis) to the UK in 2014, and this is likely to increase over the following few years, before plateauing.

Based on Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise import statistics, FAS London conservatively estimates that the UK will have imported 4.6 million metric oven dried tons (MT) of wood pellets in 2014. This makes the UK

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currently the largest importer of wood pellets in the world. U.S. Dept. of Commerce Bureau of Census data shows that the U.S. is the largest exporter in the world of wood pellets (FAS London estimates 3.6 million MT in 2014), with approximately 75% destined for the UK. The additional 1 million MT or more required by the UK in 2014 were supplied mainly by Canada and other EU countries such as Portugal and Latvia.

Wood pellet manufacturing is the most dynamic wood energy sector in the U.S. because of increases in capacity and production of industrial pellets for export to the UK and the wider EU e.g. Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Denmark. U.S. export capacity has been ramped up quickly from less than 100,000 MT in 2008 to approaching 4 million MT by the end of 2014. It is projected that by 2015 the capacity for exports could increase to more than 6 million MT in order to capitalize on increased demand from the EU. The shipping of forestry products across the Atlantic

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■ Enviva’s development of multiple wood pellet plants catapulted the industry in the U.S. South.

has not been without controversy. There is a degree of contention in some media outlets and from non-governmental organizations around subsidies given to the sector, competition for the wood from other industries, and the efficiency of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction compared to fossil fuels. The UK government must ensure that any subsidy structure put in place is compliant with UK and EU energy and competitiveness laws.

There is an increasing academic research base on both sides of the Atlantic that shows that, with responsible, sustainable forestry management practices, industrial wood pellets can deliver very significant greenhouse gas savings, compared to fossil fuels. Publication of a UK government model to illustrate the potential effects of using biomass sourced from North American forests (BEAC) has highlighted the complexity of modeling future greenhouse gas emissions and carbon accounting scenarios based on hypothetical counterfactuals. It is now becoming more widely ac-

cepted that the degree of carbon neutrality achieved depends on the type of forest used, how fast individual trees grow, the parts of the tree used and the rate of growth of the forest relative to harvest rates. This provides a significant competitive advantage to U.S. forestry, especially in the Southeastern U.S., where the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Analysis and Inventory program provides a reliable and accurate reference point as well as useful historic data. Carbon research shows that Southeastern forests recapture harvested carbon very rapidly. A complex set of forest dynamics indicate potential for slowing carbon accumulation.

The U.S. recognizes the critical role that forests play in addressing greenhouse gas emissions, and an assessment of that contribution has been undertaken as part of the wider work on the President’s Climate Action Plan (2013). On November 19, 2014, the EPA released a second draft of its Framework for Assessing Biogenic CO2 Emissions from Stationary Sources (www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/biogenic-emissions.html).

The latest Framework includes more technical approaches over an earlier draft released in September 2011, and will similarly undergo a review process by the EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB).

This body of work and systems approach on U.S. forest management and wood pellet production is providing additional reassurance to the evidence collected and reports completed by the private sector. The latter are required to meet UK sustainability criteria for solid biomass. The U.S. industry has been able to comply with UK requirements by providing “Category A” chain of custody based certification such as Forest Stewardship Council or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), or “Category B” data, which incorporates risk assessments, regionally aggregated sustainability monitoring and reporting, and recognizes compliance with local laws and regulations.

From a relatively low base of around $10 million worth of imports in 2009, FAS London estimates that the UK likely imported around $875 million worth of wood pellets from global sources in calendar year 2014.

Around 60% ($530 million—figures are Free on Board (FOB) basis) was sourced from the U.S. Growth is inherently linked to when a small number of large scale coal-fired units make the conversion to firing biomass.

Three more large UK electricity power units are timetabled to convert to biomass in the next two to three years. After that, UK wood pellet market for electricity generation is likely to plateau as further units are unlikely to convert, and the ones that have done so have reached their efficiency and capacity. The current UK government (next election in May 2015) has not pledged any further support for additional existing infrastructure conversion to biomass, and existing policy does not favor new large dedicated biomass facilities.

The market is further constrained by the fact that UK regulatory support for electricity generation from biomass conversions is all due to expire in 2027.

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Drax has become the center of the wood pellet market universe.

General EU Policy As a member of the European Union, the UK is obligated to sustainably reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the EU’s Climate and Energy Package (CEP) and the Renewable Energy Directive (RED, EC/2009/28).

Both pieces of legislation were officially published in 2009, but there have been a variety of implementation dates for EU Member States (MS) as they address the composite parts within their own regulation and administrative systems.

The CEP includes the “20/20/20” goals for 2020: l A 20% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to 1990 l A 20% improvement in energy efficiency l A 20% share for renewable energy in the EU total energy mix While an additional target of 10% share for renewable energy in transport has to be achieved by all EU Member States, the goal for 20% renewable energy in the total energy consumption is an overall EU goal (to be met by the sum of Member State efforts). The RED sets different targets for different Member States (MS) based on each MS’ capacity. The UK target is 15%.

In the RED, sustainability criteria for liquid biofuels are specified. These include minimum GHG emissions reductions, land use and environmental criteria as well as economic and social criteria. The RED does not mandate sustainability criteria for solid and gaseous biomass, but there has been development of several private industry schemes as well as moves to legislate in this area by a number of Member States e.g. the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Denmark.

On July 27, 2014, the European Commission published a staff working document reviewing the state of play on sustainability requirements for the use of solid and gaseous biomass sources in the EU. The document was accompanied by a report prepared by the Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC) on the input values and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from solid and

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gaseous bioenergy pathways.

The document analyzes the current sustainability status of solid and gaseous biomass for uses in electricity, heating and cooling production in the EU. It highlights the following key findings: 1) the risk of market distortions caused by national sustainability regulations can be managed through the existing EU framework on technical standards, as only a few Member States (MS) are adopting biomass sustainability schemes; 2) while the vast majority of the biomass currently used in the EU for heat and power provides significant GHG savings compared to fossil fuels, a number of biomass pathways can lead to low or negative GHG savings; further research should be carried out on the future role of such pathways in the EU energy sector; 3) the Commission will monitor the origin and the end-use of biomass in the EU and take corrective action if needed; and 4) the Commission will develop a biomass policy for 2030 aimed at maximizing the overall climate and environmental benefits of biomass and its contributions to significant GHG emission savings. Even though the Commission has decided not to have an EU-wide sustainability criteria on biomass at this time (due to divergences among Commission services as well as Member States), it still plans to develop a biomass policy for 2030.

The EU Commission is expected to announce further proposals to build a resilient energy union by the end of the year.

General UK Policy Historically, energy production in the UK has been based around its natural resources of fossil fuels, meaning that the UK has not been particularly active in its pursuit of energy from renewable resources. Compared to many other Member States, the UK is therefore starting from a very low level of renewable energy consumption and this means that the challenge to meet its 2020 targets is even greater. The 2009 Renewable Energy Directive sets a target for the UK to achieve 15% of its energy consumption

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New U.S. wood pellet plants keep sprouting up in the Southern U.S.

from renewable sources by 2020. Though conversely its carbon reductions, in the energy sector, since the early 1990s are relatively high due to the move away from coal to gas generation and to the commissioning of the Sizewell B nuclear station.

In 2008, the UK government introduced a long-term legally binding framework to tackle climate change and transition towards “a low-carbon economy.” The Climate Change Act requires that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are reduced by at least 80% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. The Act also introduces legally binding carbon budgets, which set a ceiling on the levels of greenhouse gases that can be emitted into the atmosphere. In the same year, the Energy Act 2008 made provisions for UK government support mechanisms to de-carbonize the energy sector.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) estimates that biomass could contribute 21% of the UK’s (EU Renewable Energy Directive) target of generating 15% of the UK’s energy from renewable sources by 2020. DECC also predicts that sustainably sourced bioenergy could contribute around 8-11% of the UK’s total primary energy demand by 2020. These figures constitute high “bars” for the UK to reach, given that the latter figure was reportedly 3.3% in 2010.

Due to the energy market structure and government policy intervention, the UK is at the forefront of industrial bioenergy expansion within Europe—mostly wood burning for electricity in large scale (500- 650 MW) facilities. Although some energy companies are investing in and proposing new dedicated biomass power stations, the Government has capped the total maximum level of new build dedicated biomass plants which will be eligible for support at 400 MW in total. Plants that are already co-firing biomass with coal or converting from coal to biomass are the larger players and are driving the expansion. The change in these plants is also driven by the potential for a number to exceed legally binding EU standards on sulfur dioxide emissions that come into force in 2015.

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The UK government set out its thinking on how best to support the use of biomass in energy generation in its UK Biomass Strategy published in 2012.

Currently bioenergy accounts for 3% of total primary energy consumption in the UK with the majority (65%) being in power generation. When used in a converted coal plant its relative speed of deployment, cost effectiveness, and direct carbon savings against other alternative renewable technologies makes it an attractive option for contributing towards the delivery of the UK’s renewables target. For example DECC’s bioenergy strategy estimates the subsidy cost per ton of carbon dioxide saved (£/tCO2) as £200 for offshore wind, £200 to £530 for new build dedicated biomass and £50-£60 when biomass is used in a converted coal power station.

UK Fiscal Incentives UK government support for power generation from sustainable biomass includes financial incentives. The Renewables Obligation (RO) is the main support mechanism for renewable electricity projects in the UK. The RO came into effect in 2002 in England, Wales and Scotland, and in 2005 in Northern Ireland. It places an obligation on UK electricity suppliers to source an increasing proportion of the electricity they supply to customers from renewable sources. For information on how the obligation level is set each year please see the Department of Energy and Climate Change website.

Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) are “green” certificates issued to operators of accredited renewable generating stations for the eligible renewable electricity they generate. Operators can trade the ROCs with other parties, with the ROCs ultimately being used by suppliers to demonstrate that they have met their obligation. Currently, new dedicated biomass operations receive 1.5 ROCs per megawatt hour (MWh), reducing to 1.4 ROCS for accreditations after March 31, 2016 while new dedicated facilities with Combined Heat and Power can receive double the number of Renewables

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Zilkha Biomass black pellets could redefine overseas markets if the economics and performance are there.

Obligation Certificates.

Where suppliers do not have a sufficient number of ROCs to meet their obligation, they must pay an equivalent amount into a “buy-out” fund. The administrative cost of the scheme is recovered from the fund and the rest is distributed back to suppliers in proportion to the number of ROCs they produced in respect of their individual obligation. For the period 2013 to 2014, electricity suppliers received approximately £0.50 ($0.80) for each ROC they presented (the recycle value).

The Renewables Obligation will close to new generators on March 31, 2017 with all support for biomass conversions ending in 2027. (The scheme closes to biomass before it closes for other technologies.)

Smaller scale electricity generation is supported through the Feed-In Tariff scheme (FITs). This is available through licensed electricity suppliers and is designed to incentivize generation of low-carbon electricity by paying households, landlords, businesses for the bioenergy they produce. If a householder or community of business has an eligible installation, FITs pay them a tariff for the electricity they generate and a tariff for the electricity they export back to the grid.

In addition, the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) was first introduced in November 2011 for non-domestic buildings. Biomass boilers are just one of a number of renewable heat technologies eligible for government support under RHI. Generators of renewable heat for non-domestic buildings can be paid up to 10 pence (16

cents) per kilowatt hour for hot water and up to 8.7 pence (14 cents) for heat which they generate and use themselves. An RHI for domestic buildings was launched in April 2014 and is open to homeowners, private landlords, social landlords and self-builders.

The UK government has a Levy Control Framework (LCF) that is designed to help DECC achieve its energy and climate change goals in a way that is consistent with economic growth and at the same time minimizes the impact on consumer energy bills and on the competitiveness of the UK. Electricity Market Reform (EMR) is a package of UK government measures to incentivize the investment needed to replace the UK’s aging electricity infrastructure with a more diverse and low-carbon energy mix. The EMR has two mechanisms: Contracts for Difference and the Capacity Market.

Essentially the UK has two different subsidy schemes that can enable coal-fired power facilities to convert from coal to biomass: the Renewables Obligation (RO) (explained earlier) and the Contracts for Difference (CfD) Scheme. The most recent LCF budget for renewable energy/CfDs, announced in July 2014, allocated £205 million ($330 million) across a range of technologies such as on- and off-shore wind, solar, hydro, wave/tidal, etc. with no allocation for coal to biomass conversion in round one. Given the size of the projects, this last option is relatively expensive (in absolute terms compared with smaller projects), so with a tight budget the current UK government has chosen to

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give a small amount to several options rather than a majority amount to a single technology. However, two projects were awarded CfDs under the Final Investment Decision Enabling for Renewables (FIDeR) scheme, in effect an early form of CfD which is now subject to State Aid Approval from the EU. Meanwhile two other units have converted under the ROC scheme. Furthermore round two of the CfD allocation process is taking place. As of November 2014, two 645 MW units had fully converted under the RO (running baseload each of these units requires around 2.5 million tons of pellets per year).

Looking to the future, although it is difficult to know for sure (pending political, fiscal and private sector investment decisions), it seems that the UK may have at least another four power station units (130-645 MW each in capacity) producing electricity from biomass by 2017. In addition to this a Combined Heat and Power Station (350 MW) is expected to run on biomass as it also received a FIDeR CfD contract.

UK Sustainability The EU’s Renewable Energy Directive does not mandate sustainability criteria for solid and gaseous biomass. However, under the RO the UK government developed a reporting mechanism and later formal regulation incorporating sustainability criteria for these fuel states based on a recommendation paper published by the European Commission in February 2010.

Since April 1, 2011, under the Renewables Obligation (RO), electricity generators over 50 kilowatts have been required to report annually on their performance against sustainability criteria for biomass feedstocks they use. The currently non-mandatory sustainability criteria are: a) minimum 60% greenhouse gas (GHG) lifecycle emission saving for electricity generation using solid biomass or biogas relative to fossil fuel; and b) general restrictions on using materials sourced from land with high biodiversity value or high carbon stock—including primary forest, protected areas, peatland and wetlands. The sustainability criteria apply to the use of imported as well as domestic biomass and biogas for electricity generation but do not apply to waste or biomass wholly derived from waste.

In the last quarter of 2012, the UK government held a public comment period (consultation) on proposed amendments to the biomass sustainability criteria used to determine support for biomass through the Renewables Obligation. Following this, the UK Government decided to bring in robust sustainability controls for solid biomass and biogas that go beyond those currently required at the EU level and internationally.

In February 2013, Government announced its intention that the biomass sustainability measures under Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) should be broadly comparable to the RO (with some differences to account for the differences between the heat and electric-

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ity sectors). Compliance with the Timber Standard is expected to become mandatory for the RHI. In August 2013, the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced that from April 2015 all electricity generators of 1 megawatt capacity or higher must show that renewable fuel used (i.e. solid biomass, biogas) meets certain sustainability criteria to receive financial support under the Renewable Obligation.

At the same time, DECC introduced new criteria for sustainable forest management (the UK Timber Standard for Heat and Electricity, based on the UK Timber Procurement Policy (UK- TPP) principles), establishment of a GHG target trajectory and a requirement for generators to produce independent audit/assessment reports.

The sustainable forest management criteria are set out in DECC’s Timber Standard for Heat and Electricity, (the Timber Standard), published in February 2014.

This draws on the principles set under the UK Government Timber Procurement Policy (UK-TPP) and cover a range of social, economic and environmental considerations that are part of good sustainable forest management practices and are based on internationally agreed criteria. In practice to meet the Timber Standard criteria wood must either be sourced from a recognized forest certification scheme (this is known as Category A evidence under the UK-TPP), or provide bespoke evidence to demonstrate that it has been sustainably sourced (known as Category B evidence under the UK-TPP).

The Central Point of Expertise on Timber (CPET) for procurement by the public sector provides information on its website on Category A and B evidence under the UK-TPP. CPET have developed a Framework to provide support to both purchasers and suppliers on the provision and assessment of bespoke evidence with respect to the UK-TPP for the UK government. The Category B approach incorporates risk assessments, regionally aggregated sustainability monitoring and reporting, and recognition for compliance with local laws and regulations.

The UK government undertook another public comment period from June 2014 and published a response in August 2014. The main results of this exercise included a change to the definition of “sawlogs,” a requirement to report whether biomass is derived from hardwood or softwood (rather than specific tree species), a decision to deem arboricultural residues as sustainable and another to not exempt sawmill residues from compliance with sustainability criteria.

In July 2014, the Department for Energy and Climate Change launched a calculator tool designed to estimate the carbon emissions impact of biomass sourced from North America to produce electricity. The Bioenergy Emissions and Counterfactual (BEAC) Model uses a number of hypothetical scenarios to indicate changes in the amount of carbon stored in forests over the lifetime of a biomass project. It is not a policy formation tool and it makes clear that the scenarios it models are not realistic representations of real world situations.

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On the renewable heating side, the UK government plans to introduce biomass sustainability Renewable Heat Incentive regulations in 2015.

To ensure sustainability is addressed across the sector, Final Investment Decision Enabling for Renewables (FIDeR) contracts and generic Contracts for Difference (CfD) awarded under the UK government’s Electricity Market Reform follow the same approach as the sustainability criteria set under the RO.

UK Production Following the launch of a strategy document by the Forestry Commission in 2010, supplies from UK forests to the bioenergy sector have been increasing. Around 10 million green MT of wood each year is currently harvested in the UK from woodlands and forests. Harvested timber goes to supply a range of markets including sawmills, panelboard producers and heat generation. The UK has made significant progress in developing the wood-fuel supply chains (in 2007 around 0.5 million MT of wood were delivered to energy markets, increasing to 1.5 million MT in 2010) but UK forests are relatively dispersed and the UK lacks the wood volume or infrastructure which would allow this wood fiber to be supplied to the power sector (wood pellet mills for example).

The UK’s largest generator now operates on pelletized material and therefore did not buy a single ton of UK wood fiber in 2013 for example.

The Forestry Commission’s current softwood production forecast estimates that the UK softwood harvest is due to peak at 12 million green tons in the period 201721 (equivalent to around 6 million oven dried tons (odt)).

Bioenergy feedstocks from existing woodlands, forests, urban spaces and transport corridors, co-products of the sawmill industry, development of short rotation forestry and small roundwood markets represent a significant potential contribution to the UK bioenergy resource for heat. DECC scenarios estimate current potential to be between 6-31 terawatt-hours (TWh), rising to between 13-34 TWh by 2030, which implies between 2.4 and 6.5 Modt (million oven dried tonnes) of UK forestry resources by 2030.

The target is to bring an additional 2 million MT to market, annually, by 2020, representing 50% of the estimated unharvested available material in English woodlands. Achieving the 2 million MT target represents a 60% increase in wood production in England.

More realistic, but still challenging, is an estimate of 2.4 million MT of UK produced woody biomass by 2015. Whatever the estimate, it is clear that the UK domestic biomass supply will fall drastically short of the amount needed to serve the future bioenergy market in the UK. In 2012, the UK biomass capacity of large electricity generators was 829 megawatts (MW), an increase of more than 250% from 2011.

Over the last 10 years biomass-fueled generation has increased by 400%, driven by conversion of coal-fired

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plants. If all the proposed biomass power plants were up and running (approx total capacity 2,900 MW), around 12-13 million tons of biomass pellets would be needed to fuel them. Almost none of this will be met from the UK woody biomass market.

Trade The size of the challenge facing the UK domestic forestry sector in meeting UK government targets is considerable. In order to meet the fast-growing demand for bioenergy in the UK (and other European countries), imports of biomass, particularly wood chips and wood pellets, will be essential, and is likely to form around 80%of inputs.

UK imports of wood pellets grew by around 0.5 million MT each year between 2010 and 2012. At that time Canada was the largest supplier, with around 56-57% market share. However, as UK energy company linkages with U.S. facilities and suppliers are improving so the U.S. has taken a larger share of the growing market.

Total imports of wood pellets doubled into the UK market between 2012 and 2013, and the latest available figures show the U.S. now has around 60% market share. If the pace of U.S. exports to the UK continues, the annual total could approach 2.8 million MT ($530 million).

UK developers of biomass power plants are actively looking for credit worthy existing large industrial players to supply them. U.S. suppliers interested in the UK market need to be aware that they would need to deliver in a two-year timeframe (from the date in which a contract is signed). The ability to deliver large capacity consistently is paramount. UK power plants vary in their efficiency. The best performers currently use around 0.45 million to 0.5 million tons of wood pellets per 100 MW capacity.

USDA’S Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) provides timely information on the agricultural economy, products and issues in foreign countries. U.S. Foreign Service officers working at posts overseas collect and submit information on the agricultural situation in more than 130 countries to USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), which maintains the GAIN reports. Production, Supply and Distribution (PSD) data in GAIN reports are not official USDA data, but represent estimates made by FAS Attachés. Official USDA PSD data are determined after analyzing all overseas reports and drawing on additional sources, including more than 1,500 documents received from private and public sources around the world, global weather information, and satellite imagery analysis. After this analysis, official USDA data are released in USDA’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates monthly report and in FAS’ World Production, Market and Trade reports.

This report was prepared by Jennifer Wilson, in consultation with the U.S. Mission to the EU; FAS/USDA, The Hague; U.S. Forest Service; Southern Research Station; U.S. Commercial Service, London.

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■ chipping focus

Georgia Logger

Expands Into Chips

By Jessica Johnson MONTICELLO, Ga. im Colvin, 67, is a cantankerous fellow, with a big laugh and the tendency to say exactly what he’s thinking. But don’t let that all fool you, under the beard is a very strong work ethic, and an eye for opportunity, two things he’s quickly passing on to his son, Marcus, 33.

Both men have a passion for logging— even if the father tried to divert the son.

Jim explains that he’s got sawdust in his veins, and Marcus has been in the woods since he got out of high school.

“I tried to convince him otherwise but that’s what he wanted to do. I wanted to make sure he was committed, because if you’re not committed in this you won’t make it a year,” Colvin explains. And The crew has nearly doubled its load count with new chipper. while he owns the business, Colvin Logging & Timber Buying, Marcus owns the trucking arm of the operation. logging has changed quite a bit, but the biggest change “Him owning the trucks helps get him in the business came when the chipper was added to the lineup. more. Do you think it would be a nightmare if your dad walked up to you and dumped $3 million worth of Chipping Operations equipment on you and said ‘go to it, son’? I’m trying to “It’s been going well,” Colvin says, adding that the work him into it,” Colvin explains of Marcus. Eventuforay into chipping has been a boost to the company. ally, the family business will be handed to the second When Piedmont Green Power in Barnesville, Ga. came generation, but for now Colvin is more focused on the on-line, Colvin saw an opportunity to expand his lognear-future and the expanding markets. ging business and create a new outlet for previously unRecently, the company started producing in-woods merchantable material. chips when Piedmont Green Power in nearby BarColvin did a lot of research, he says, and instead of acnesville, Ga. came on-line. That has been a welcomed tually demoing machines he read about them, before ultichange for Colvin, who’s been in logging for 35 years. mately selecting a brand new 2013 Bandit 2590, with a He explains that during the last three and a half decades,

J

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Cat engine. Instead of using the whole made a Cat-financed upgrade feasible. tree, like other models, the Bandit Main separations are hardwood and takes limbs and needles only to make pine pulpwood, sawtimber, chip-nfuel wood. He stresses, “We wanted to saw and pallet wood, in addition to use the trash and not the product. I chips. Colvin does a mixture of buywanted something that would help us ing his own wood and contract cutting take something that wasn’t a product for Canal Wood, LLC, a timber dealer and make a product.” with offices in nearby Forsyth, Ga., Bandit of the Southeast provided working with procurement forester Colvin Logging with their chipper, and Riley Singleton. while they might be far away, Marcus The crew usually finds itself on 75 reports they are very good about getacres of mixed product clear cuts, ting parts to the machine. Since it’s when on Canal tracts. Purchased tracts equipped with a Cat engine, Colvin’s are a little smaller, averaging 50 acres.

Cat dealer, Yancey Brothers in Macon, Jim Colvin, left, with his son Marcus The crew works within a 60-mile raGa., will service the engine. dius of the home base (and shop) in Colvin says when he first explained to some about Monticello, Ga. Singleton says, “They are second to how he wanted to set up his landing, with just the one none as far as quality in the woods. As far as wood seploader feeding both the chipper and delimbing and loadarations, their attention to detail, they do a quality job ing trucks, people thought he was a little crazy. “We every single time. Pretty much Colvin cuts everything I just started it and didn’t stop. Now, it’s just part of it. have in this area.”

The delimber is on one end and the chipper is on the Marcus stresses that they don’t burn bridges with other,” he explains. other timber companies, because you never know when Since Marcus runs both the loader and the chipper you’re going to have to call someone because you have via remote from his loader cab, if Colvin were to try to to have a job. When it comes to purchase tracts, most move the set-up it might not go over so well. “If I try to are repeat customers. move the chipper he’d get mad. It’s become part of what he’s doing.”

Trucking Operations After about six or eight weeks of finding a groove, Marcus sums up his piece of the Colvin business, the Marcus and the crew have been able to boost productrucking aspect, saying, “It’s a little aggravating but you tion from 35-40 loads a week of roundwood to 60-70 work with it. That’s what you’ve got to do to get rid of loads a week with roundwood and chips. Colvin adds the wood. It’s hard to depend on contract truckers bewith a note of pride that they are running the same cause you don’t know when they are going to show up crew; all they are doing is using unusable material. and when they’re not.”

The crew has four trucks to work with, one Peterbilt Logging Operations and three Freightliners. Chip vans are Peerless and ITI. The chipper is just one piece of the large puzzle that is Typically, one truck is dedicated to hauling chips, while Colvin logging’s equipment list, which is dominated by the rest run roundwood. Though Marcus says that since five pieces of Caterpillar equipment. Colvin doesn’t talk turnaround time at the mill has lately been a little slow, much about his loyalty to Cat, he just let’s his equipment they’ve started running two trucks with chip vans. list speak for himself. Though he’s run other brands in the Thursday night is bookwork night, and Colvin’s boss, past, in 2006 he purchased a Cat skidder and didn’t look his wife Katie, does it all. Marcus explains that his back. “It was the biggest machine at that time and we mother is “old school,” and does everything manually. needed a bigger, stronger maKatie’s old school mentality chine,” he says, before adding regarding the bookwork isn’t with a wry smile, “I wish I the only part of the operation still had all the money I spent that benefits from the idea of on logging equipment over hard work pays off. Marcus the years.” says that the most important Colvin says that the relapart of the operation is their tionship built with Piedmont reputation: The family has Green Power, and its need one of the best in their part of for fuel wood, was what Georgia. “You want to make helped drive the equipment sure you do a good job for the upgrades. The increased delandowners and you get reColvin purchased a brand new Bandit 2590 without demo- peat business. It’s quality, not mand, combined with the ing it, electing instead to do research on the machine. existing equipment’s age, quantity,” he says.

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■ product news

Terex Purchases Continental Biomass Industries Terex Materials Processing, a business segment of Terex Corp., has acquired Continental Biomass Industries, Inc. (CBI), marking a significant expansion of the Terex Environmental Equipment (TEE) product line. TEE, part of Terex Materials Processing, has been serving the wood, biomass and recycling industries since 2011.

The acquisition of CBI’s business, in operation since 1988 and based in Newton, NH, significantly advances the product line while adding dimensions to the TEE business that would otherwise have taken years to develop, according to Terex. The acquisition also adds customization and specialty product capabilities.

Kieran Hegarty, president of Terex Materials Processing, comments, “Wood processing, biomass fuel production, and recycling are strong and growing industries that are driven by increasing global demand for environmentally responsible solutions to waste disposal and alternative energy. We see a real opportunity to bring value to customers in these industries by providing equipment that com-

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bines the know-how of CBI and TEE with our existing materials processing expertise.”

CBI has a long history in the wood/bio and recycling markets and brings an experienced team that can continue to drive specialized product and project sales on a global basis. Terex’s established distribution relationships will enable quick development of a worldwide distributor network.

Terex Environmental Equipment will serve customers via three distinct but collaborative sales and support channels: l The CBI brand will be maintained as a Terex brand within the portfolio. CBI products will serve

high-capacity recycling, wood processing and biomass customers.

CBI products will be represented by a direct sales force, who will work in collaboration with TEE and other Terex distribution. l The Terex Eco product range will address mid-range recycling and wood processing needs for turnkey mobile solutions. This product line will primarily be sold by a network of specialized distributors. l The Terex Arborist line will include hand-fed chippers and other smaller equipment that is primarily used by tree care specialists, utility line maintenance, and construction/ landscaping contractors. Terex Arborist equipment will be sold direct to large fleet owners

Terex expands high-capacity offerings with purchase of CBI.

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product news ■

and to smaller customers via a network of tree care specific dealers.

Anders Ragnarsson, owner and founder of CBI, will continue as the Managing Director of the CBI product line. He comments, “Terex is the perfect partner to take the CBI brand to the next level, combining Terex’s global talent and well-established distribution channels with CBI’s strong product development, service and custom design and build capabilities.”

In addition to managing CBI, he will support Tony Devlin, TEE Worldwide Business Director, in developing TEE into a market leader in the wood/bio and recycling industries.

According to Devlin, “Terex Materials Processing has a long history of providing applicationspecific equipment that converts complex materials into more useful, more valuable, and less waste intensive outputs. We’re excited to build on that heritage as we further expand into the recycling, biomass and wood processing industries.”

Morbark WTC Gears To Biomass Markets

Morbark MicroChipper is one of company’s most popular.

Morbark, Inc. enhanced the design of its popular 40/36 whole tree chipper in 2013 to adapt it to producing the micro-chips vital to pellet mills and bioenergy applications. The model is quickly becoming one of its most popular units, according to the company.

The 40/36 MicroChipper includes an enhanced Advantage 3 drum set with 16 knives utilizing standard hardware for easy maintenance, an operator-friendly slidein forestry grate system to reduce

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■ product news

oversized chips for more consistent and higher quality microchips, and a straight discharge chute with a mechanically driven chip accelerator and a hydraulically operated chip deflect with vertical and horizontal adjustment to fully load vans.

“With new biomass plants being built in the United States and the rapid expansion of wood pellet exports to Europe, our customers need a cost-effective system for making micro-chips,” says John Foote, Morbark VP of Sales and Marketing. “The 40/36 MicroChipper is the solution. We are able to produce a far superior product, producing up to 95% acceptable micro-chips at volumes of more than 70 tons per hour.”

With high production of microchips per gallon of fuel used, the Morbark 40/36 allows owners to reduce costs and maximize profits.

In customer tests, up to 95% of the micro-chips produced passed through a ½ in. grate, and an average of 65% passed through a ¼ in. grate, the company reports.

Morbark’s internal drive feed system has fewer moving parts, creating a high-performance, lowmaintenance machine, while the Morbark Integrated Control Systems allows for diagnostic monitoring to further reduce downtime.

Visit morbark.com/microchipper.

Plevin Installs Vecoplan Waste Line For R Plevin & Sons Ltd, a leading company in the UK wood recycling sector, Vecoplan AG has delivered, installed and successfully commissioned a complete wood waste treatment plant. The new plant, installed at Plevin’s Hazlehead site, with a capacity to process 150,000 tons of wood waste per year, is one of the biggest and most efficient waste wood recycling plants in the UK, the participants report.

Vecoplan, located in the German Westerwald area, is strongly positioned to offer complete solutions

New Vecoplan line at Plevin processes 150,000 tons per year.

for the processing of low grade wood waste into high quality wood fuel. It delivered the whole processing line to Plevin, including ferrous and non-ferrous separators, disc screen, oscillating screens, hand sorting cabin, conveying technology and truck loading stations.

“With the full trust of Plevin’s in Vecoplan’s ability to deliver the complete system, and an excellent working partnership, the project was a great success for both parties,” states Vecoplan.

The high quality fuel produced is shipped directly and exclusively to EON UK’s new 30 MW biomass CHP plant in Sheffield, which provides renewable electrical energy to 40,000 homes and includes a hot water district heating system for local homes and businesses.

Efficient shredding technology is the key to successful and economic processing of wood waste.

The high quality requirements for waste wood fuel in regards to contamination and fines content have to be economically fulfilled. Vecoplan’s VNZ 250 XLT double shaft shredder is a slow speed, high torque operation that produces far less fines and more consistently sized finished fuel stock.

The system also includes Vecoplan’s VNZ 250 XLT patented HiTorc drives. These drives offer the most efficient power consumption and it is also possible to feed this machine directly with unprocessed wood.

Dean Ashton, Plevin’s Group

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Engineering Manager, confirms after successful commissioning in June 2014: “Vecoplan’s solution is incredibly efficient thanks to their patented Hi-Torc direct drive technology. The entire plant is fully automated and can operate in excess of the specified 60 tph.”

power plant.

For Nokian Renkaat, the power plant will bring cost benefits, and additionally reduces the greenhouse gas emissions of the production process.

Nokianvirran Energia Oy’s current plant consists of two gas-fired boilers with a steam power of 57 and 110 MW. The new 68 MW plant to be constructed will be integrated with the existing power

Finland Energy Firm To Install Boiler Valmet’s new biomass boiler plant at Nokianvirran Energia in Finland will include a HYBEX boiler with a steam power of 68 MW that employs fluidized bed technology, flue gas purification equipment, and the plant’s electrification and automation system.

The boiler plant will be delivered for a new steam heat station to be built in Nokia. The total value of Nokianvirran Energia’s investment is approximately EUR 45 million, of which the value of Valmet’s delivery is slightly more than a half.

The new heating station will produce process steam for the SCA Hygiene Products paper mill and the Nokian Renkaat factory, as well as district heat for Leppäkosken Lämpö’s district heat customers.

The fossil natural gas previously used for energy production will be replaced with more affordable biofuels, such as timber chips and whole tree chips. In addition, the boiler can utilize milled peat and sludge from the paper mill.

Leppäkosken Lämpö distributes the district heat produced by the power plant to its customers through its network. “This investment will especially improve the price competitiveness of district heat compared with other heating methods,” says Juha Koskinen, managing director of Leppäkosken Lämpö.

For SCA, which manufactures tissue, the investment will decrease the company’s dependence on fossil natural gas. In addition the de-inking sludge derived from the tissue mill can also be used for energy production at the new

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plant. As gas is replaced by biofuels, carbon dioxide emissions in the area will decrease by 60,00080,000 tons per year.

Manufacturing has started at Valmet’s Lapua workshop. According to the project schedule, steam production will begin in the spring of 2016.

Chipping Business Is Brisk For CEM

CEM model 130-15 UltraChip

The second quarter of 2015 will see CEM commissioning four new chippers into separate high production wood chipping facilities in the pulp and paper and biofuels markets. These heavy duty chippers vary in size from 112 in. to 130 in. diameter discs. They are provided with 12 to 18 knives, arranged to a combined total drive power of over 6000 kW, and will provide a combined total of over 20,000 GMT/ day production capacity.

CEM’s machines are typically included in new log lines and chipping systems provided by well-respected systems suppliers such as Price LogPro and Raumaster Oy. They are also provided directly to owner/operators via stand-alone upgrades of existing facilities which often require little infrastructure modification except for replacement of the chipper to realize substantial system performance improvements.

CEM is a U.S. manufacturer and supplier of stationary heavy duty/high production log chippers, chipper parts, engineered upgrades and technical services for CEM’s products. With equipment operat-

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■ product news

ing on six continents, CEM’s patented technologies provide owner/operators of pulp mills and pellet/biofuels plants around the world with advantages in areas of wood yard safety, reliability, production capability and both conventional wood chip and microchip quality. Visit cemmachine.com.

Bandit Continues Expansion Push Bandit Industries recently completed its fourth plant expansion in nine months at Remus, Mich. to keep up with increasing demand for its equipment. All the plant expansions have added space for additional employees and increasing production.

Bandit moved into a new rebuild facility in October 2014, in-

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creasing its capacity for rebuilding used machines. The move also freed up construction space in the forestry mower and Beast chipper buildings, allowing the forestry mower area to double its production and allowing the Beast recycler line to increase production by 25%.

A new electronics facility was finished in November 2014, allowing for increased production of electronic control panels harnesses used on all Bandit equipment. The new facility is now building all of the new control panels and proportional drives that are now featured on all of Bandit’s Tier 4 engine options.

“In February of this year, we moved into a new facility to build drum chipper heads for our handfed chippers, whole tree chippers and Beast recyclers, along with

the rotors for our forestry mower lines,” says Jerry Morey, president of Bandit Industries. “The new facility freed up production areas in our hand-fed drum chipper area, which is allowing us to increase production in that area by 50%.”

On April 1, Bandit Industries moved into an expansion of its whole tree manufacturing facility, increasing production of its whole tree chippers by 50%, Morey adds.

“These four expansions have allowed us to add 80 full-time employees and add much-needed production,” Morey says. “Surging demand for our products over the past two years has increased lead times longer than I like, and at times has cost us orders. The additional production capacity will reduce lead times by the end of the second quarter.”

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Doosan Kicks Up Dust In Desert Doosan Equipment held its 2015 media event in Tucson, Ariz.

March 25-26. The event attracted editors from construction, scrap and logging magazines. The opening dinner at the JW Marriott Tucson Starr Pass Resort featured Doosan representatives addressing the company’s extensive lineup of equipment, including several new models of crawler excavators, wheel excavators, wheel loaders, log loaders, material handlers and articulated dump trucks.

Doosan product specialist, Mike Stark, announced the company’s newest logging machine—the Tier 4-compliant Doosan DX300LL-5 track log loader. The “dash-5” model replaces the interim Tier 4 (iT4) DX300LL-3 log loader. The DX300LL-5 is powered by a 270 net HP Scania DC9 diesel engine,

Doosan showcased its log loaders.

providing 27% more horsepower than the “dash-3” model. “We took the voice of the customer back to Korea when they started designing the 300LL-5 and we think we’ve made a bunch of improvements,” Stark says.

To help save valuable diesel fuel, Doosan added an auto-shutdown system for use during nonworking conditions. Log loader operators can configure the idle time before auto-shutdown from three to 60 minutes. In addition to auto shutdown, the Doosan DX300LL-5 log loader has several new updates including improved heel design that works in tandem with a log grapple, a more robust front guard, boom cylinder guard, cab guard, standard rock guards and pattern change valve.

The unit has a loading reach of 38 ft. and loading height of just more than 43 ft. Its swing speed is 9.8 rpm.

“One new feature on the DX300LL-5 is the LED lights,” Stark explains. “In the logging industry lights can be extremely important when you’re starting your day at five in the morning and it’s still dark outside.”

Doosan also emphasized its versatile

DX225LL log loader with loading reach of more than 36 ft.

Media members had the opportunity to visit Doosan’s Real Operation Center (ROC) in the heart of

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■ product news

Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. At the ROC, representatives from Doosan explained new features on all of their different machines and media members were given the opportunity to operate each machine.

Nearly 30 machines were spread out across the desert making it the ideal place for Doosan to show what its machines are all about.

ChipSafe Shield For Brush Chippers Morbark, Inc., has expanded the availability of its ChipSafe operator safety shield as an option to the Beever M6R and M8D model brush chippers. The ChipSafe device had previously been available on all new Morbark 12 in. to 18 in. capacity chippers. Field kits to retrofit current model Morbark 6 to 18 in. capacity chippers with the ChipSafe shield also are available through Morbark’s dealer network.

Consisting of plates mounted directly to the sides of the brush chipper’s infeed chute and used in conjunction with special work

gloves and ankle straps (or straps on both the ankles and wrists), the ChipSafe stops the chipper’s feeding mechanism if the operator’s hands or feet enter the defined ChipSafe sensing zone in the infeed chute, protecting the operator from possible injury. The chipper’s feeding mechanism is restarted with a simple swipe of the operator’s ChipSafe glove or wrist strap across a reset box located on the outer side of the infeed chute, so high productivity is maintained.

Visit morbark.com.

Discharge Conveyor Enhances Loading The new discharge conveyor option for Bandit Beast recyclers provides both a 30 ft. discharge conveyor and a thrower, so operators can load both open top and end-loading trailers.

It acts like a standard discharge, providing a tall platform to pile mulch, chips, or other products or load them in open-top trucks. But with the thrower, operators can

easily broadcast the end product across a jobsite or load open-end trailers quickly and efficiently.

The switch from discharge conveyor to the thrower is quick, taking less than a minute. The 30 ft. discharge conveyor is a two-section discharge. When the thrower is operated, the end section of the discharge folds up over the top of the first conveyor and out of the way. The thrower is then hydraulically tilted into position. When the thrower is in place, material is toploaded into the thrower and discharged at tremendous velocity.

Visit banditchippers.com.

Bandit conveyor/thrower option

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