California&rsquo;s immense stores of waste biomass once had a plush abode in the equitably priced, long-term power purchase agreements (PPA) that stemmed from the state&rsquo;s aggressive interpretation of federal legislation&mdash;the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act of 1978&mdash;born out of the energy crisis of the early 1970s. At its peak in the early 1990s, the California biomass energy industry produced almost 4.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year of electricity, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and each year provided a good home to more than 10 million tons of the state&rsquo;s solid wastes. PURPA required electric utility companies to buy privately produced power at their avoided cost of generation, in essence spawning development of the independent power industry in the U.S. High avoided cost rates, particularly in California, and favorable federal tax policy for renewable energy projects provided the impetus under PURPA for explosive growth for the state&rsquo;s biomass power industry. NREL states that many of the facilities that entered service during the late 1980s had what&rsquo;s called Interim Standard Offer No. 4 PPAs with California&rsquo;s two major electric utility companies, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison Co. Only available for signing in 1984-&lsquo;85, standard offer No. 4 allowed pricing of biomass power based on energy price forecasts for the first 10 years of facility operations&mdash;a much more attractive option than using fluctuating, short-term prices. Forecasts were based on the high avoided cost rates of the time, 5 to 6 cents per kWh. After the 10-year fixed-price period was up, biomass power plants were compensated based on the then-current market price, referred to as the short-run avoided cost (SRAC). Most of the contracts were written with 30-year terms. As energy prices dropped in the early 1990s, SRAC rates dropped. Many biomass power plants were immune since they were locked into 10-year fixed prices, but increased biomass demand led to high feedstock prices. Since then, the industry has gone back and forth with unfavorable regulations such as the California Public Utilities Commission&rsquo;s Blue Book Proposal, which prompted PPA buyouts as biomass power plant owners grew concerned about their 30-year performance obligations amidst higher feedstock costs and lower SRAC pricing, and favorable short-term legislative fixes such as AB 1890, which superseded CPUC&rsquo;s Blue Book Proposal and recognized the waste disposal benefits of biomass power. AB 1890 directed the state EPA to study policies that would shift some costs of biomass energy production away from the electric ratepayer and onto the beneficiaries of the waste disposal services it provides. Even though biomass power plants that were unable to secure fixed pricing under a standard offer No. 4 PPA received a short-lived 1.5-cent-per-kWh subsidy from a renewable transition fund established by AB 1890, enactment of cost-shifting regulations never came to fruition. Industry, Jobs, Air Quality in Jeopardy Today, despite a strong renewable portfolio standard (RPS), the most aggressive greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction efforts in the nation, bans on open-burning and various landfill diversion regulations, the California biomass power industry teeters on extinction, leaving untold tons of waste biomass&mdash;and a significant number of jobs tied to the collection, transport and preparation of this material&mdash;in limbo. While SRAC pricing is established using a complicated formula, according to Julee Malinowski-Ball, executive director of the California Biomass Energy Alliance, they are fundamentally based on the price of natural gas. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s abundant and super cheap,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;In the post-crisis world, fixed energy pricing has been five years at a time, and we&rsquo;re on the very last opportunity under any fixed pricing. Those fixed energy prices are expiring, and contracts themselves are expiring.&rdquo; She says those plants whose fixed contracts are expiring are being offered 3 cents per kWh or less, a fetch unable to sustain a facility that must pay for the fuel itself along with its collection and transport. &ldquo;Facilities can&rsquo;t run on SRAC, so they&rsquo;re shutting down.&rdquo; She says at the peak in the 1980s, there were 63 biomass power plants operating in California. &ldquo;Today, there are 25,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;We lost five plants in the past 18 months. Prior to that, we were losing a plant a year. Today, we have 535 MW of capacity and at the peak I&rsquo;m guessing there was about a thousand.&rdquo;&nbsp; Depending on their size, Malinowski-Ball says facilities whose contracts are expiring have a couple of options. The first option is bidding into new request for proposal. &ldquo;Facilities are bidding into them, but they&rsquo;re not winning,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;The reason is that the solar stuff is coming in so cheap&mdash;5 or 6 cents&mdash;and while biomass may meet California&rsquo;s least-cost, best-fit standard, it&rsquo;s not just about cost. The utilities don&rsquo;t actually just use least-cost, best-fit, they use the cheapest they can find and contract with that.&rdquo; As a result of contracting with intermittent renewable sources of power such as solar and wind, the grid has had a &ldquo;tough time balancing,&rdquo; Malinowski-Ball says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not the utilities&rsquo; responsibilities to care about how the grid functions. They just want to procure the least-cost option&mdash;and that&rsquo;s not us. Biomass is a different bird in the renewable world. We have to pay for fuel, collection and transport to facilities. It puts us in a range that&rsquo;s far above the brand new solar PV stuff coming in.&rdquo; The second option is to bid into an auction opportunity under 20 MW. &ldquo;But there&rsquo;s no must-take mandate there, and no biomass facility has procured a contract under those options,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;The way our RPS program is implemented, there&rsquo;s bias against baseload resources. We&rsquo;re trying to fix that, but it&rsquo;s not going to be quick.&rdquo; With AB 32 (the GHG reduction mandate) and a robust RPS, &ldquo;this should clearly add up to a variety of renewable technologies,&rdquo; Malinowski-Ball says, &ldquo;but when it came to reality and the way the RPS program is implemented, we said, &lsquo;Wow, we&rsquo;re never going to win these RFOs.&rsquo;&rdquo; Greenleaf Power shut down two California biomass facilities last fall; a 38-MW facility in Humboldt County that uses timber slash and sawmill residuals, and a 17-MW plant in Tracy, which uses urban diversion from San Francisco Bay combined with agricultural materials from the Central Valley, including orchard trimmings, prunings and removed trees. The company has six plants altogether, four in California. Rob Pennington, vice president of finance for Greenleaf Power, says the CPUC drives the decision-making of the investor-owned utilities in the state, and there is inadequate valuation of the attributes biomass power offers versus intermittent renewables. &ldquo;Little value is given to the baseload nature of biomass facilities that have a flexible level of generation,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Furthermore, no value is given to the economic benefits of these facilities, which are more jobs per MW hour than any others.&rdquo; Part of this jobs equation includes fuel suppliers up and down the state. These are small businesses with small trucking operations that own one or two wood chippers. &ldquo;These folks are not supplemented by large corporations,&rdquo; Malinowski-Ball says. &ldquo;We call them dedicated indirect jobs, jobs that mostly don&rsquo;t exist without facilities to serve, so they send people home and the fuel supply infrastructure loses jobs. They&rsquo;re the middle man. They deal with the growers and farmers. They reach out to them and then sign contracts with us for delivery.&rdquo; Pennington also notes the undervalued environmental service biomass power plants provide to California&rsquo;s air quality by avoiding open burning. &ldquo;What doesn&rsquo;t go to the shutdown facilities will be burned in the field,&rdquo; Pennington warns. &ldquo;Over the past 20 years, this material has been diverted to biomass facilities.&rdquo; Biomass power plants also divert urban wastes from landfills. And the state&rsquo;s wooded areas have benefited by thinning, which improves forest health and wild fire risk. Biomass power facilities are not being credited for these benefits. Pennington says without a home, this material is destined for open burning, rolling back decades of progress in renewable baseload power generation and air quality. &ldquo;Our biggest problem is not landfill diversion,&rdquo; Malinowski-Ball says. &ldquo;The bigger issue is more of a health-based problem&mdash;the return of open burning. In the San Joaquin Valley there&rsquo;s a ban, but you can get permits.&rdquo; Morgan Lambert, deputy air pollution control officer for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, says he&rsquo;s seen no significant increases in open-burning permitting requests yet, but several meetings with biomass interest groups have made him acutely aware of the ongoing situation. &ldquo;From their perspective, it&rsquo;s a serious issue,&rdquo; Lambert says. Though open burning has been banned in the valley for years and phased-in reductions outside the valley have also been in effect, these all rely on there being an economically feasible alternative to open burning. &ldquo;If not, then we can still allow agriculture waste burning in the valley,&rdquo; he says. Lambert adds that the SJVAPCD will continue to monitor this matter, working with stakeholders to understand what their issues are to make sure the agency is in the loop. &ldquo;At some point we will see more of an impact,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s harmful to our agriculture community in valley, and we&rsquo;re sensitive to that.&rdquo;&nbsp; Legislative Aid At the heart of the problem is an unleveled playing field. &ldquo;No technology is getting by without any government support except biomass facilities,&rdquo; Malinowski-Ball says. &ldquo;Wind and solar get tons of incentives that our facilities are not getting. We&rsquo;ve not gotten a dime from the government in many years. In a perfect world, no one would have incentives, but we don&rsquo;t live in perfect world. Solar in California gets property tax exemptions worth billions of dollars&mdash;it&rsquo;s a full production tax credit. It&rsquo;s a very unleveled playing field in the RPS and, until it&rsquo;s leveled, we need some support. Even if everything gets leveled, we can still make the argument that the beneficiaries to biomass power technology are not paying. If local governments are under [landfill diversion] mandates but are not contributing to it, then that&rsquo;s a problem.&rdquo; Pennington says there are tax credits available for construction of new facilities, including biomass, &ldquo;but there&rsquo;s no support to maintain existing facilities,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We feel it makes more sense to maintain existing facilities than to build new, especially when existing biomass facilities provide benefits other technologies don&rsquo;t. But none of that occurs. Solar power produces when the sun shines, and then the grid has to find ways to store it when needed, and dispose of the excess generated. There are costs going into building out transmission to support that level of intermittent generation, and storage to deal with those issues, none of which is being factored into the economics of the buying decisions of the utilities. They&rsquo;re looking to buy cheapest dollar per-MW basis. None of the attributes we bring to the table are being factored.&rdquo; And it&rsquo;s not just about subsidies, Pennington says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s part of it, but we have a higher-value product, and we&rsquo;re being forced to compete with technologies and generation that should be valued less than what we produce, resulting in the closure of a number of facilities. The state and regulations haven&rsquo;t addressed the issue to level the playing field.&rdquo; Passage of AB 2363 last year was the first attempt to level the playing field. &ldquo;What the bill did is [require] CPUC to review and come up with grid integration costs for all renewable technologies so that can be a part of the bidding process in future RFOs,&rdquo; Malinowski-Ball says. &ldquo;And this affects solar, so if our and the utilities&rsquo; numbers are correct, it&rsquo;s another penny-and-a-half or more.&rdquo; According to a press release from Assemblyman Brian Dahle, the sponsor of AB 2363, the act acknowledges that wind and solar electricity require expensive backup power or storage to ensure consistent availability of electricity despite changes in the weather, yet the CPUC has not included those costs when figuring the cost of renewable energy sources as it reviews utilities&rsquo; power purchases. A better accounting, initiated by AB 2363, will help level the playing field within the renewable sector and ensure small hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomass energy producers have a fair shot at selling power into the market. While repeated requests to interview Dahle were ignored, his press release states that &ldquo;large tax credits and other incentives for wind and solar have undermined the financial viability of some of the North State&rsquo;s most valuable contributions to the state&rsquo;s renewable energy future.&rdquo; While regulations for AB 2363 get drafted, another important piece of legislation has passed the Assembly and awaits action in the Senate: AB 590. Also cosponsored by Dahle, AB 590 will add incentives for biomass utilization of agriculture and forest wastes. The legislation will divert biomass from landfills and creates renewable energy along with jobs and a myriad of cobenefits to wildlife, air quality and water supply, according to Dahle&rsquo;s press release. &ldquo;Biomass power generation is a clean and efficient way to produce renewable energy and help improve our air,&rdquo; said AB 590 cosponsor Assemblyman Rudy Salas. &ldquo;In fact, the Delano biomass facility has helped reduce 96 percent of the pollutants released from open-field burning. This facility alone converts 300,000 tons of agricultural waste per year into clean, renewable energy. AB 590 provides the necessary structure and resources to protect and incentivize biomass power in California.&rdquo; Malinowski-Ball says AB 590 is a standalone bill proposing a biomass cost-share account using GHG reduction funds from AB 32 cap-and-trade auction revenue. &ldquo;Electric ratepayers currently pay for their share, but no one is paying for these other societal benefits generated,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;No one is paying landfill diversion and burn bans, so there needs to be a beneficiaries-paid process, and the GHG reduction fund is the seed money for that. In the short term, this fund is designed to be accessed for biomass power plants falling off fixed energy prices or fixed contracts to make sure they don&rsquo;t go off line. If they do shut down, we can count on GHG emissions increasing from open burning or landfilling. In the long-term, we can do other things with these funds, but in the short-term they&rsquo;re needed to stabilize the industry while the state puts together a post-2020 climate plan.&rdquo; As the bill sits in the senate fiscal committee, there&rsquo;s another parallel path forward. &ldquo;The money will be appropriated in the annual GHG reduction fund budget trailer bill, and we hope to be a part of that,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Technically, we don&rsquo;t even need the bill [to pass the Senate]. We can work on the budget behind the scenes. However, it&rsquo;s very important for our industry to take on a standalone bill to educate legislators, so I don&rsquo;t want to make it sound like we don&rsquo;t need the bill.&rdquo; At press time, the Senate was on summer recess, scheduled to return Aug. 17. &ldquo;Government support like AB 590 would be great,&rdquo; Pennington says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a shame that we as a state provide so much money to fight fires, but we&rsquo;re not spending money to actively remove the risk on federal lands within the state. A very small amount of dollars go to subsidize the removal of material in a way that could benefit the biomass industry and prevent fire risks and damage to the forests.&rdquo;&nbsp;
 Dahle noted in his press release that, &ldquo;In the past few years, we have seen the catastrophic results of forests that are too loaded with forest fuels. The people of my district have lived in a cloud of smoke, as thousands of acres have burned destroying lives, property, critical animal habitat, ruining our watersheds and wasting valuable resources. I introduced AB 590 to address this crisis.&rdquo; Pennington says he&rsquo;s hopeful about the emerging legislation to aid the suffering biomass industry by leveling the playing field while providing a beneficial home to millions of tons of biomass once again, but he&rsquo;s concerned that when the state finally gets around to valuing the benefits of biomass, these assets may no longer be there. &ldquo;That language will take time to be written into law and regulations, and allowing the utilities to react to that,&rdquo; he tells Biomass Magazine. &ldquo;Our concern with idle facilities is that they won&rsquo;t be around once the legislation is worked out, and it would be a shame to lose an entire asset class in that time period.&rdquo; Author: Ron Kotrba Senior Editor, Biomass Magazine 218-745-8347 rkotrba@bbiinternational.com

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AWAITING ACTION: Greenleaf Power idled this 17-MW biomass power plant in Tracy, California, last fall when it could not compete on an unlevel playing field with solar and wind, and low natural gas prices, the basis for pricing under new PPAs.  

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Biomass power generation in California is threatened by expiring contracts, low energy prices and an unlevel playing field, leaving millions of tons of biomass fuel without a use. 

California's Homeless Biomass Problem

On Aug. 3, the Obama administration released the final version of its Clean Power Plan, an ambitious state-by-state roadmap for reducing carbon emissions from all sources. Since power plants are responsible for a large amount of U.S. carbon emissions, reducing carbon from electricity is the main objective of the plan, which has set reduction targets for each state. States will have some flexibility in determining their strategy for reducing carbon from power sources, also known as State Implementation Plans, but they must follow a specific and complicated set of rules to achieve their targets and gain EPA approval. Biomass Power Association is still evaluating the rule and its potential impacts on the industry, for both existing plants and potential new facilities. From the outset, the rule squarely acknowledges the benefits of biomass in the preamble, stating, &ldquo;The EPA recognizes that the use of some biomass-derived fuels can play an important role in controlling increases of CO2 levels in the atmosphere.&rdquo;
 From there, it gets much more complicated. Below are a few areas likely to affect our industry that BPA is still analyzing. &bull; Verifying the carbon benefits of every biomass feedstock: States will need to prove the carbon benefits of each biomass feedstock named in their carbon reduction plans. It is likely that many waste-derived biogenic feedstocks will qualify, but only with measures in place to monitor, report and verify the fuel&rsquo;s carbon benefits. This can be a complex and costly procedure, and it&rsquo;s unclear whether the state or the biomass facility and its fuel suppliers would bear this cost. &bull; Existing versus new facilities: Only facilities that came online on or following the EPA&rsquo;s cutoff of Jan. 1, 2013, will be counted in each SIP. This theoretically excludes many facilities that are, in practice, no different than the ones that came online a year or two later. &bull; &ldquo;Qualified biomass&rdquo; and cofiring: EPA defines qualified biomass as &ldquo;biomass that can be considered as an approach for controlling increases of CO2 levels in the atmosphere.&rdquo; It appears to have opened the door for coal facilities to cofire with biomass, but only fuel from approved feedstocks. &bull; Scientific Advisory Board findings: The EPA&rsquo;s Scientific Advisory Board process is ongoing and could affect which feedstocks are considered &ldquo;qualified biomass.&rdquo; This panel is tasked with identifying the carbon emissions of all biogenic sources, and included in the final Clean Power Plan are references to the panel&rsquo;s influence in determining approvable feedstocks. It is unclear when the panel&rsquo;s peer review process will be complete, but many expect a conclusion before the end of the year. We anticipate that the implementation of the Clean Power Plan will be a focus of our association for many months, or even years, to come. We are conducting a survey among members of Biomass Power Association to determine the types of fuel used in each state. This will help us decide the best way to advocate for and support our members, on both the federal and state levels, as the Clean Power Plan implementation begins to take shape. Biomass accounts for a small portion of the U.S. power load, around 2.5 percent, but provides many ancillary benefits. Our industry provides many more jobs per megawatt than some other renewable power sources. We also provide an outlet for materials that are low value and often unusable, like forestry residues and agricultural byproducts. And we provide stable, reliable electricity that isn&rsquo;t dependent on weather conditions, an important supplement to intermittent power that the Clean Power Plan heavily favors. For all of these reasons, we play an important role in the U.S. power portfolio, and we are confident that states will acknowledge this as they draft their plans. We are not the only power-producing industry still weighing the impacts of the plan; many others are in a similar situation. We expect to hear a lot more in the coming weeks and months, but right now, one thing is sure: The Clean Power Plan will be a focus for a very long time. Author: Bob Cleaves President, Biomass Power Association bob@biomasspowerassociation.com www.biomasspowerassociation.com

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On Aug. 3, the Obama administration released the final version of its Clean Power Plan, an ambitious state-by-state roadmap for reducing carbon emissions from all sources. 

Biomass's Role in  Clean Power Plan

BIO elects board members The Biotechnology Industry Organization has elected 19 directors to serve on its board executive committee for the 2015-&rsquo;16 term, including Christopher Standlee of Abengoa Bioenergy and Dan Cummings of Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels. Standlee, executive vice president of Abengoa Bioenergy, will serve as the governing board chair of BIO&rsquo;s Industrial &amp; Environmental Section. Cummings, president of Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels, will serve as the governing board vice chair of BIO&rsquo;s Industrial &amp; Environmental Section. BIO announces name change The Biotechnology Industry Organization has announced it will change its name to the Biotechnology Innovation Organization early next year. According to BIO, the new name will better express the essence of what its member companies represent. Southern Research adds vice president Southern Research has named William Grieco as vice president of its energy and environment division. He will lead the division&rsquo;s efforts toward cleaner and more efficient energy production, water research at the industrial and watershed level, new technology development for grid-scale energy storage, creation of carbon fiber production technologies from biobased sources, and new fuel source development from biomass and other feedstocks. Grieco previously served as director of innovation at Owens Corning in Granville, Ohio. Research partnership to develop nonsmoking tobacco feedstock&nbsp; Smithfield Food&rsquo;s Hog Production Division, Murphy-Brown LLC, and Tyton Bioenergy Systems have announced a research partnership to develop new applications for Tyton&rsquo;s dedicated nonsmoking tobacco crop and the resulting soil amendment, filtration, and feed products within Smithfield&rsquo;s hog production processes. The companies are establishing field trials with nonsmoking tobacco using hog manure as fertilizer, and are pursuing development of ethanol products using tobacco as raw material rather than corn. USDA names chief information officer The USDA has announced Jonathan Alboum as its new chief information officer, a position formerly held by Cheryl Cook, who retired in March. Alboum has held several positions with the General Services Administration and the chief information officer position for USDA&rsquo;s Food and Nutrition Service. Before joining federal service, Alboum worked as a management consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ventera Corp. Royal DSM adds executive Royal DSM has announced Atul Thakrar has joined the company as head of its Bio-based Products &amp; Services unit. Thakrar will take responsibility for DSM&rsquo;s involvement in the emerging biorenewables industry, including holding board positions on the Reverdia and Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels joint venture boards. Thakrar previously served as president and CEO of Segetis Inc. Solegear adds team member Solegear Bioplastic Technologies Inc. has announced the addition of Sadaf Shafiei Sabet to its biopolymer engineering team. Sabet holds a doctorate in chemical and biological engineering from the University of British Columbia. She also holds bachelors and masters degrees in polymer engineering and nanotechnology, and has completed extensive practical research using nanotechnology to improve the performance of bioplastics. USDA names chief economist The USDA has named Robert Johansson as its chief economist. Johansson has served as USDA&rsquo;s acting chief economist since January and as deputy chief economist since 2012. He joined USDA in 2001. As chief economist, Johansson is responsible for USDA&rsquo;s agricultural forecasts and projections and for advising the secretary of agriculture on economic implications of programs, regulations, and legislative proposals. His responsibilities include the Office of the Chief Economist, the World Agricultural Outlook Board, the Office of Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit analysis, the Global Change Program Office, and the Office of Energy Policy and New Uses. He also serves as chairman of the federal crop insurance board of directors. &nbsp; Viaspace names CEO Viaspace Inc. has appointed Haris Basit as CEO and a board member. He previously served as a staff engineer at IBM, a manager at Rockwell International, a manager at Bell Labs, vice president of business development for OEA International, founder and CEO of Multigig Inc., and founder of Mobius Power LLC. More recently, Basit worked as a corporate strategy consultant and became the founder and CEO of Almaden Energy Group. In April, Viaspace announced it was partnering with AEG to grow Giant King Grass in the U.S. for animal feed. Carl Kukkonen has transitioned to chief technology officer of Viaspace.

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Business Briefs

This month, while interviewing sources for a feature on residential and commercial pellet storage options, I was struck by how frequently pellet system engineers feel the burden of managing the industry&rsquo;s overall reputation with their clientele. On top of that, it became clear that the storage and handling elements of installed systems are the components that end users are likely to interact with the most. As you&rsquo;ll read in &ldquo;Putting Pellets Away&rdquo; on page 32, Dave Frank at Sunwood Biomass reminded me that, over time, biomass systems have gradually inched closer to requiring as little from their owners as their fossil-fuel based competitors. Carefully considered and well-engineered pellet handling systems contribute to this momentum, while solutions that frustrate the end user erode it. Katie Fletcher&rsquo;s page 22-feature, &ldquo;Master of Logistics,&rdquo; could be considered a companion piece to my story, but rather than looking at how tens of tons of pellets are stored and moved, Fletcher digs into Enviva&rsquo;s investment in port infrastructure to move millions of tons per year. While the two stories couldn&rsquo;t be more different when considering the volumes involved, the goals for each system are essentially the same. Enviva needed a solution that could efficiently receive pellets, keep them dry and move them down the line, all the while minimizing pellet degradation. Like the system engineers I spoke with, it is clear that Enviva knows that if they are to succeed, these storage and ship loading terminals have to work properly. Fletcher&rsquo;s conversations with Enviva CEO John Keppler underscored this notion, and she closes her story saying, &ldquo;Keppler believes it&rsquo;s the effective storage and handling solutions that enable the company to maintain the integrity and high quality of its product, and ensure the consistent delivery of the product on time.&rdquo; In our power section this month, we dispatched Senior Editor Ron Kotrba to investigate the situation in California, the second-largest biomass power producing state in the nation. I urge you to read it, as it offers a sobering look at the uphill battle our industry faces, despite national momentum toward lower-carbon energy. So often in this industry, our gaze falls to the moment biomass is converted into power, thermal energy, biofuels or pellets. While working on this month&rsquo;s issue, the team at Biomass Magazine was reminded that the foundation upon which all of that sits is well-executed storage and handling solutions.
Author: Tim Portz Vice President of Content&nbsp; &amp; Executive Editor tportz@bbiinternational.com

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So often in this industry, our gaze falls to the moment biomass is converted into power, thermal energy, biofuels or pellets. 

Getting It Right

As biobased product manufacturers evaluate sites for future facilities, a key consideration for long-term success is a consistent supply of agricultural biomass feedstock. The challenge of building a stable, efficient supply chain is magnified by three factors: grower education, logistics management and demand-side stability. For the past 17 years, we&rsquo;ve worked both sides of the equation: partnering with growers, who range from family farmers to large agribusinesses, to procuring a steady supply of biomass for the leading bioenergy facilities and animal forage exporters in the U.S. The following is what we&rsquo;ve learned. Overcome Adoption Barriers With Information We must demonstrate to growers that managing crop residue means sustainably removing the right amount to benefit their ground and future crop production. Luckily, there are reliable tools to measure and develop sustainable residue management practices. There are three key soil health indicators that are affected by crop residue: soil nutrients, erosion and soil organic carbon (SOC). Each indicator&rsquo;s desired level is determined by a myriad of factors such as specific soil type, crop type, climate conditions, tillage method and residue harvest method. These can vary sometimes within the acreage of a single grower. While residue can provide nutrients to the soil for the following year&rsquo;s crop, in some cases, too much residue can work against it by trapping nitrogen in the soil. Indeed, as grain yields have increased, so has residue. Erosion is a real issue, but it is possible to retain a suitable residue ground cover and stalk height that protects against wind and water soil loss that matches or exceeds what is tolerable on a yearly basis for that particular soil to remain as productive or better. Last, when it comes to SOC. we ensure that at least 50 percent of the aboveground residue remains on the field to replenish the SOC.&nbsp; Again, soil type and tillage practices are key factors in a determination of the proper residue management program, and the grower always has the final say on both whether a specific field is harvested and how much is removed. Recruiting sometimes skeptical and conservative growers relies on aggressively communicating the above information; winning over a few early adopters; and treating them with respect and their land with care. Paying them on time is critical. Harnesss Technology, Local Resources Choreographing a fleet of harvesting machines across a 50-mile radius to arrive on particular parcels of land at exactly the right time, often on short notice, requires sophisticated logistics coordination. Managing the collection and transportation of the baled biomass to the production facility adds another layer of complexity. Unlike corn and grain markets, the biomass industry does not yet have the fully integrated supply chain to process hundreds of thousands&mdash;and soon millions&mdash;of tons of ag biomass. We work closely with partners in the transportation space, local drivers and haulers, our grower partners and others to get supply from the source to the destination.&nbsp; We&rsquo;ve trademarked a proprietary supply chain management system, called PowerStock Pro, which integrates all the processes and variables from end to end.&nbsp;&nbsp; Increased Demand, Increased Supply While the first generation of cellulosic biofuel plants are approaching full production, their presence kicked off a focused effort to build out a supply chain in several new markets. This, in turn led to an increased (and in some cases new) supply of biomass that would otherwise not have existed. We now have hundreds of farmers participating in the supply for the Abengoa biorefinery in Kansas as the plant begins to operate.&nbsp; We are supplying hundreds of thousands of tons of biomass, a number that would not have been likely two years ago. We&rsquo;re seeing similar success in grower adoption in Nevada, Iowa, where we&rsquo;re working closely with DuPont on its cellulosic ethanol facility, as well as in North Dakota and the Carolinas. In terms of tonnage, we&rsquo;ll build out about as much in these regions in three years as we did in the Pacific Northwest in 15 years. With the build-out of a supply chain and the reality of a steady, sustainable and quality feedstock supply, we are now starting to see new uses and new demand for crop residue from new industries, including composting to animal feed to erosion control to tree-free paper products. Moving Forward We operate the largest fleet of biomass harvesting equipment in the U.S., and can rapidly deploy them across multiple supply sheds, in nearly every month of the year. With each successful experience by a grower, confidence grows in others, which accelerates adoption. Increased adoption means increased supply, which facilitates more demand. It is through this virtuous circle that we expect substantial growth in the business of agricultural biomass feedstock supply and a successful cellulosic industry. Authors: Bill Levy &nbsp;CEO and President, Pacific Ag

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SHAPING UP: The biomass industry is working on crafting a fully integrated supply chain to process hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions, of tons of ag biomass in demand. 

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There are several main challenges in constructing an effective ag biomass supply chain, and they are influenced by a variety of factors.

The Virtuous Cycle of Biomass Supply

Name the crop, and AGCO has baled it. Extensive work with kenaf, hemp, miscanthus, energy sorghum, energy cane, switchgrass and corn stalks&mdash;nearly all nonwoody biomass&mdash;has allowed the company to build a tremendous knowledge base of how to treat each material and bring success to a project, says Glenn Farris, AGCO North American biomass and industrials segment strategy manager.&nbsp; &ldquo;We can bale it all, but we&rsquo;ll just say some are certainly more challenging than others,&rdquo; he quips. It hasn&rsquo;t come without trial and error, but that&rsquo;s the name of the game in this burgeoning industry, according to Farris.&nbsp; As of late, the focus has been on corn stover, and on what he dubs The Big Three&mdash;Abengoa&rsquo;s, DuPont&rsquo;s and Poet-DSM&rsquo;s commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants in Hugoton, Kansas; Nevada, Iowa; and Emmetsburg, Iowa, respectively. At Abengoa, Pacific Ag does 100 percent of the feedstock supply, and uses AGCO balers exclusively. Investment for the machines needed to complete the feedstock supply chain amount to much more than one might think&mdash;a typical-size, 25 to 30 MMgy cellulosic ethanol plant requires around 350,000 dry tons of stover per year, which equates to as many as 60 balers and windrowers when the project is fully open, and a total of around 350 pieces of equipment. Therefore, on top of the roughly $200 million cost to build a plant, an additional $40 million investment is required for machines alone. Right now, the market for large square balers in this industry is around 1,600 units, Farris says, but potential as vast. If cellulosic fuel production projections are achieved&mdash;one billion gallons by 2023&mdash;that could ratchet up the market to roughly 4,000 balers, for corn stover specifically. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s more than two and a half times the existing market, it including the other uses the balers are used for,&rdquo; Farris says. With corn stover in mind, the company&rsquo;s 2200 Series large square baler has a simplistic, robust design, with high throughput and density. AGCO&rsquo;s WR9870 windrower with biomass attachments has a Twin Max double conditioning system, which Kyle Kitt, marketing manager of hay cutting, preparation and forage, says no other player in the market offers. But regardless of a machine&rsquo;s capability or reliability, if the operator isn&rsquo;t well trained, overall efficiencies can plummet. &ldquo;No matter how great a product is, if you don&rsquo;t have the knowledge to make it shine, it will only get you so far,&rdquo; Kitt says. Practice Makes Perfect AGCO has developed a service and training coaching model that has served the company and its customers well. &ldquo;Two years ago, we had 100 new operators at a project, and of those 100, approximately 82 of them had never participated in a baling activity before,&rdquo; Farris says. &ldquo;Out of those 82, 56 had never sat in a tractor before. Within three weeks of the start, they were doing an outstanding job and achieved every goal that was set for them.&rdquo; &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have 30-year veterans running this equipment, and that&rsquo;s why technology is so important&mdash;it allows these companies to monitor performance and see efficiencies improve over time,&rdquo; Kitt adds. For example, in 2012, AGCO spent time analyzing what was going on with several of the projects it was involved in, and found its baler performance to be right on, but the learning curve was how to optimize them in each environment. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what generated all of our training&mdash;we believed our piece of the puzzle was very good, but it has to start at the operator and their understanding&mdash;we&rsquo;ve found that less than 30 percent of the issues are on equipment,&rdquo; Kitt says. And despite many years of preparation, even beyond operator performance, learn-as-they-go is the only way to perfect operations, as there is no point of reference to look back on. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t have what the corn starch ethanol industry had&mdash;a system already in place, a commodities market, storage areas, the logistical chain. It all already existed, it just needed to expand for the new demand for supply,&rdquo; Farris says. &ldquo;When these project developers are planning, they can&rsquo;t sit down and look at a historical price and predict what they think it will be; there is nowhere they can pick up a phone and ask if someone can send 100,000 tons of corn stover next month.&rdquo; And that&rsquo;s where the biggest challenge lies&mdash;the development of a system, which couldn&rsquo;t be done in earlier project development stages, when the focus was elsewhere. &ldquo;When you look at how the industry has evolved, for years they [cellulosic ethanol companies] spent all of their time on their technology, and rightly so, as they are technology companies to a great degree,&rdquo; Farris says. &ldquo;So they solved problems there first.&rdquo; Now, with the Big Three all underway, the preferred feedstock system is in the making, and may or may not be one-size-fits-all. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know which is going to be &lsquo;the one&rsquo;, but we&rsquo;re really getting into the knowledge of spare parts, the consumables, ways to keep costs down and how to optimize the machines,&rdquo; Farris says. Though AGCO has been wheels-deep in stover logistics, its work with biomass continues to expand beyond that crop and the U.S. market. Other Markets, Road Ahead One developing and two operational power projects in Chile and sugarcane baling in Brazil and Argentina are some examples of AGCO&rsquo;s latest global biomass sector involvement, offers Ken Wagenbach, senior marketing specialist. Also attracting the company&rsquo;s attention are developments in China, where the company already has operations and sees significant growth opportunity, and the EU, where AGCO is a major market force. Opportunities abroad and outside the U.S.&nbsp; border are vast, but AGCO is still keeping a close eye on new and developing markets in the U.S. &ldquo;I think there will continue to be a significant amount of growth in the pellet industry, not just for export, but for home and district heating,&rdquo; Farris says. &ldquo;A lot of that is woody biomass, but you might see ag waste and purpose-grown crops become a robust part of that market. There is a different set of economics around that, and it&rsquo;s fairly compelling&hellip;I think another thing we&rsquo;re starting to hear rumblings about is the use of wheat straw and miscanthus for pulping material.&rdquo; Although a watchful eye is kept on the renewable fuel standard (RFS), business doesn&rsquo;t start or end there for AGCO, as the reality is that for them, growth will continue to happen, regardless of policy direction.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think [liquid] fuels will continue to grow, but each one of these companies is devoting a lot of their resources into the chemical areas, too, things that are used for building blocks for plastics, cosmetics and other higher-value products with large markets, so I think we&rsquo;ll start seeing more of that in the near future,&rdquo; Wagenbach says. There are many more pieces to the puzzle than just fuel, from his perspective. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s also about agronomics and sustainability,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not just totally interested in it for fuels; I think we&rsquo;re looking at this as residue management from major cropping sources, as yields increase and crop genetics change. Farris points out corn yields are steadily rising and current national averages hover around 175-plus bushels per acre, with forecasts to reach 200 within the next 15 years. &ldquo;Yields for wheat are in the mid-40s, when you see them hit 65 to 70, there will be a need to take it off because it will be a detriment to yields.&rdquo; Therefore, the once heavily debated argument surrounding crop residue removal will become nearly obsolete, and the concept will move from a potential detriment to an extra revenue stream. &ldquo;All of a sudden, it&rsquo;s going to go beyond a niche market for one company,&rdquo; Kitt adds. &ldquo;It will become every corn farmer&rsquo;s opportunity.&rdquo; Authors: Anna Simet Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine asimet@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4961

AGCOâ€™s 2200 Series large square baler is working the fields around the newly completed U.S. cellulosic ethanol facilities.

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AGCO is well-equipped to aid the first U.S. cellulosic ethanol plants in devising efficient and effective feedstock supply chain models. 

From Blueprint to Baler

On July 27, the U.S. EPA took one step closer toward putting the renewable fuels standard (RFS) back on track by closing the comment period on the long-awaited renewable volume obligations (RVOs) for the 2014, 2105 and 2016 proposed rule. The EPA must now begin the arduous process of analyzing the hundreds of thousands of comments and challenges it received on the rule. Unfortunately, the EPA still has a long road ahead, as any final rule is likely to be challenged in the courts, once again leaving the advanced and cellulosic industry in suspended animation. The proposed rule, a policy that covers three years, has been perceived as a mixed bag by many organizations. The oil industry has issues with the 2016 RVOs breaching the blend wall. The ethanol industry is frustrated, to say the least, with the use of the general waiver authority to reduce the statutory obligations. In Washington, the mudslinging between the established industries has been nonstop for two years, with rallies, protests, television and print ads. In the midst of all this mudslinging, the advanced and cellulosic sectors have borne the brunt of an ever-increasing degree of collateral damage. As many of you know, the RFS was created to &ldquo;reduce dependence on foreign sources of petroleum, increase domestic sources of energy, and help transition to alternatives to petroleum in the transportation sector&rdquo; as well as &ldquo;provide a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.&rdquo; Without question, the intent of Congress under RFS2 was to encourage the development of a robust advanced and cellulosic biofuels industry. This concept was embodied in the statute when it called for 21 billion gallons of advanced and cellulosic biofuels to be produced and consumed by 2022, while capping corn-based ethanol at 15 billion gallons in 2015. Unfortunately, companies producing advanced and cellulosic biofuels continue to fall victim to the uncertainty around the program. It&rsquo;s this uncertainty that has made it virtually impossible to instill confidence in the financial sector, discouraging the investment required to build the new facilities, as envisioned under the act.&nbsp;&nbsp; For the advanced biofuels industry, the proposed rule is a major improvement over the original proposed rule of 2014. The EPA has made progress in regard to the increased targets proposed for the advanced, cellulosic and biomass-based diesel pools. Furthermore, the proposal utilizes actual production numbers from 2014 and most of 2015 to set volume targets, a pragmatic solution that the Advanced Biofuels Association has advocated for the past 18 months. In doing so, they have removed most of the likely legal challenges for those years. However, the rule does not address the looming &ldquo;reset&rdquo; which, as the policy stands, would be required by the numbers the EPA has proposed. This compounds the level of uncertainty and leaves the industry in limbo without reliable, long-term drivers for the future. The EPA also fails to address many of the barriers to entry that companies face when trying to participate in the program. As outlined in our comments, the EPA still has a lot of work to do to address colocation and intermediate feedstocks issues, pathways, definitional and compliance issues, and issues with the application of the cellulosic waiver authority. Simply put, RVOs are important, but they are unachievable unless companies are able to acquire financing, build the necessary facilities and permit their fuels for participation under the program. While ABFA greatly appreciates the EPA&rsquo;s determination in continuing to support and improve the existing program, there is still much to be done. The time frame to overcome these challenges needs to be expedited, not expanded. It is for that reason ABFA will continue to pursue legislative reforms to strengthen the RFS. Only by working together&mdash;through legislative and regulatory channels&mdash;can we help achieve the ultimate vision of the RFS and build the next generation of biofuels..&nbsp;&nbsp; Author: Michael McAdams President, Advanced Biofuels Association mcadams@hklaw.com www.advancedbiofuelsassociation.com

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On July 27, the U.S. EPA took one step closer toward putting the renewable fuels standard (RFS) back on track by closing the comment period on the long-awaited renewable volume obligations (RVOs) for the 2014, 2105 and 2016 proposed rule.

Is the Third Time the Charm?

AAt Bio-En Power&rsquo;s Elmira, Ontario, biogas plant, it isn&rsquo;t unusual for odd items including trailer hitches, steel bars, and garbage cans to show up in the waste streams the facility takes in, but they usually don&rsquo;t cause any setbacks. &ldquo;Our equipment is built to take this odd type of stuff,&rdquo; says Earl Brubacher, manager of operations. &ldquo;At worst, we have to open up the machine to remove the item, but there&rsquo;s no real hardship.&rdquo; The facility, which started up in March 2014, is just about at capacity, which is 70,000 metric tons of mixed waste annually. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re getting there, we&rsquo;re probably at 85 or 90 percent right now,&rdquo; Brubacher says. The plant is part of a larger group, Cornerstone Renewables, a sourcing organization that he says being a part of has a number of advantages. &ldquo;If one digester goes down for some reason or can&rsquo;t take something, the waste company doesn&rsquo;t have to worry about where it goes&mdash;they just get told to take it to another digester,&rdquo; he says. Trucks that haul fuel, which is done five days per week, include liquid tankers, roll-offs, walking-floor or hoist trucks, depending on the type of waste. &ldquo;We see a lot of food waste, waste from [waste]water treatment plants, rejected batches of offspec food material, packaged products&hellip;anything in the food chain, from the farm to the fork.&rdquo; Liquid waste goes through a fairly simply process when brought to the plant&mdash;it arrives via tanker truck and is pumped into storage tanks, which are capable of holding about 750 tons of waste. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t sound like a lot, but when you&rsquo;re doing 70,000 tons per year, that&rsquo;s about two days&rsquo; worth&mdash;it&nbsp; gets you over a weekend,&rdquo; Brubacher says, adding that batches are made every day, so material is tanked for around 34 hours or less before it is sent to the digester. For solid material, it is brought to the plant receiving area where it is dumped and mechanically separated into two streams&mdash;organic slurry and contraries, Brubacher explains. Some items may require depackaging and are sent through a depackaging line, a proprietary process that he couldn&rsquo;t discuss in detail. Plastics, metals and other undesirables are sent into a compactor bin, and eventually the landfill, and remaining slurry is pumped into the storage tanks. On challenges, Brubacher says the facility isn&rsquo;t set up to receive dirty material, meaning it has to be cleaned up prior to being processed, and occasional full truckloads of tin cans can cause some processing delays. &ldquo;We can handle it, but a high volume of tin cans in one slug is a bit of a challenge,&rdquo; he says. The digester Bio-En Power deploys is what Brubacher describes as second generation. &ldquo;The vast majority of digesters out there are first-generation, or single-stage digesters, and we&rsquo;re two-stage,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Part of the anaerobic process happens in the first stage; the environmental conditions are best for those types of bacteria, and then it enters into a second stage, a different environment for a different bacteria and the rest of the process.&rdquo; A single digester has four stages, Brubacher adds&mdash;hydrolysis, acid, acetic acid and methane phases. &ldquo;We split them&mdash;we have hydrolysis and acid in one part, and the acetic acid and methane in another stage. We separate them to provide the most ideal conditions for each group of bacteria.&rdquo; Annually, about 1,300 miles directly south from Bio-En Power&rsquo;s Elmira facility is Harvest Power&rsquo;s 5.4-MW, combined-heat-and-power biogas plant in Orlando, Florida, which, although is close to double Elmira&rsquo;s capacity, processes a very similar mix of waste. About 120,000 tons of organic materials is taken in from sources in the region, including Walt Disney Resort, where it is located. Every day at any time, the Central Florida Energy Garden receives waste into a reception pit, where material is slurried if required, and pumped into storage tanks where it is mixed and fed into a digester. While liquids are generally mixed and pumped directly into storage tanks, notes Jeremy Goodfellow, Harvest Power vice president of energy operations, solids must be preprocessed, broken down and decontaminated. &ldquo;For the health of the digesters, we need to ensure there are no contaminants that can kill bacteria&mdash;for example, antibacterial soaps, which are amongst the facility&rsquo;s unaccepted materials&mdash;or materials that can damage equipment, such as large pieces of metal, or cause high levels of undesired materials in our effluent or fertilizer, including heavy metals or chemicals.&rdquo; Material is sorted out through the mechanical preprocessing system and post digestion, while tanks must to be cleaned as part of scheduled maintenance activities, Goodfellow says. The residual material is removed by a waste hauler for recycling if possible, or for final disposal. &nbsp;Another way to keep substrate in check is regular lab testing, according to Goodfellow, as well as education and outreach to the waste generators and their employees. A vast array of materials has proved to be a challenge, but one not without solution, Goodfellow adds. &ldquo;There is a wide range of materials to deal with, and the composition of the organic materials can change over time. Preprocessing to remove physical contamination&mdash;plastic, metals and glass&mdash;is one of the most challenging aspects, but is required to ensure contamination does not flow into the digestion system.&rdquo; Author: Anna Simet Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine asimet@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4961

Bio-En Powerâ€™s biogas plant in Elmira, Ontario, takes in a wide variety of waste from numerous nearby sources. Onsite storage, where material is sent prior to digestion, is capable of holding about 750 tons of waste.

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Biogas facilities taking in a wide variety of mixed organic waste have a few extra steps involved in feedstock prep.

Synthesizing Substrates

Almost unanimously, pellet delivery companies would prefer their eventual customers install as much storage as they possibly can when deploying a pellet-heat system. Many pellet systems are installed by companies that will later service those systems and deliver pellets, and their opinions on storage options make it clear that being able to store a high percentage of annual usage offers numerous advantages. Customers with greater storage capacity will enjoy a lower price per delivered ton. &ldquo;We always try to steer people toward larger storage spaces,&rdquo; says Morton Bailey, president of Lyme Green Heat. &ldquo;We realize that larger storage solutions increase the installed costs of the total system, but by offering a discount on volume, our customers can pay back the difference over time.&rdquo; Bailey points out that customers who opt for larger storage solutions have the ability to protect themselves from price fluctuations and have to think about resupply less often. The advantage is shared by the pellet delivery companies that service these customers. &ldquo;When you get into a more rural area where the road might present some challenges during the heating season, we recommend people get enough storage that they&rsquo;ll only need maybe one delivery during the season,&rdquo; says Chip Straub, general manager at Vermont Renewable Fuels. While the ideal storage situation for both consumers and delivery companies would be a system that can hold exactly one year of supply, this condition is rare, particularly in residential environments. Constrained by price, available space and aesthetic requirements, system engineers and installers instead work to minimize the number of required deliveries within a given year. &ldquo;The industry is pretty straightforward on the amount of storage capacity someone needs,&rdquo; Straub says. &ldquo;You want to size your storage so that you&rsquo;ll only need to fill three to four times per season.&rdquo; A typical residential pellet customer in the Northeast will likely consume around 10 tons of pellets per season, making three tons of storage capacity a common solution. Complicating matters, however is an aging housing stock throughout the Northeast. &ldquo;The challenge has always been headroom, at least in Vermont,&rdquo; says Straub. &ldquo;We have basements, but some of those basements are under six feet tall and some of them are even under five feet tall. So that is always a challenge when a customer is trying to decide on options for bulk storage.&rdquo; Fortunately for Straub, Bailey and their industry colleagues, a broad range of solutions has emerged that make adequate pellet storage possible, regardless of the challenges and complexities of the installation. Outdoor Silos When available space is not an issue, in some instances, outdoor silos offer system engineers and end users a cost-effective means to store an entire season&rsquo;s supply of wood pellets. &ldquo;Almost all of our commercial stuff is exterior storage, mostly because of the size of storage and the annual usage,&rdquo; Straub says. &ldquo;We have customers that have 30-ton silos, 50-ton silos, all the way up to 100-ton silos.&rdquo; Co-opted from the grain bins that dot the countryside in rural America, silos are either built from galvanized steel sections on-site or delivered in one finished unit. &ldquo;The exterior silos are the least expensive, but they are also the least appreciated,&rdquo; says Dave Frank, cofounder of Sunwood Biomass, a Vermont-based biomass heating engineering and installation company.&nbsp; &ldquo;They are so unbelievably functional, and so affordable.&rdquo; &nbsp;Silos can be scaled to satisfy the annual supply for all residential applications and the vast majority of commercial installations. Frank says silos have tremendous advantages when it comes time to deliver a new load of pellets, a transaction that he believes doesn&rsquo;t get enough consideration in some plans. &ldquo;Pellet delivery companies can blow product into the silo, or they can use an auger to move pellets in as well,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; Above all else, silos allow system owners to buy in bulk and drive down the delivered costs of their pellets. Bailey and Lyme Green Heat have been delivering bulk loads of pellets for seven years, and try to configure customers&rsquo; storage solutions to match neatly with the delivery vehicle fleet. &ldquo;If you really want to save money, you&rsquo;re going to design your solution so that we can show up with our 28-ton tractor trailer and deliver a full load of fuel,&rdquo; he says. The enthusiasm within the ranks of system designers for silos is beginning to catch the attention of some of agriculture&rsquo;s largest grain silo manufacturers. Charles Sukup, president of family-owned Sukup Manufacturing Co. in Sheffield, Iowa, is seeing inquiries and quote requests coming in from &ldquo;all-over.&rdquo; While its bread and butter is grain storage and grain handling, Sukup isn&rsquo;t surprised by the growing opportunities with wood pellets. &ldquo;Pellets are similar to corn in that you need a good bin to maintain the low moisture content,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Our bins and conveying systems are very suited to that task.&rdquo; Despite the many advantages offered by outdoor silos,&nbsp; they simply aren&rsquo;t feasible for many installations. Residential customers balk at the idea of having a large bin or silo next to their home. &lsquo;We&rsquo;re OK with satellite antennas and swimming pools, but we aren&rsquo;t OK with outdoor silos,&rdquo; Straub says. Metal, Fabric Indoor Bins Residential and commercial customers who can&rsquo;t or won&rsquo;t deploy outdoor storage must find space inside their home or facility to deploy any number of hard- or soft-sided bins in the marketplace. Hard-sided bins are largely built of sheet metal and offer a rigid, water-tight storage option for system operators. &ldquo;Sheet metal bins are totally sealed, and work better in a damp environment,&rdquo; Straub says. &ldquo;They are completely caulked and air-sealed all the way around.&rdquo; System designers admit that hard-sided, indoor bins bring with them installation challenges. &ldquo;The big challenge for metal bins is construction time,&rdquo; Straub says. &ldquo;They are a giant Erector set. It usually takes two men who know what they are doing eight to 10 hours to put one up.&rdquo; And while Straub and his team have had some luck cutting down hard-sided bins to accommodate available space, this only increases installation time and costs. Fabric, or soft-sided silos were developed to offer indoor storage at lower costs, with far less installation time. In Straub&rsquo;s experience, a fabric bin can be installed in about half the time of a sheet metal bin, around two and a half hours for a two-person team. Fabric silo solutions, like their steel and hard-sided cousins, have roots in agriculture. German fabric silo manufacturer A.B.S. has been manufacturing fabric silos for over 30 years. The company&rsquo;s founder, Adolf Lesk, established the company in 1983 to service operations that needed an indoor solution for animal feed and grain. Since the company&rsquo;s founding, A.B.S. has sold over 60,000 fabric silos. &ldquo;Our fabric silos are easy to adapt to room dimensions,&rdquo; says Maren Oberland, an international sales representative at A.B.S. &ldquo;When you have a room with difficult dimensions, we can adapt the silo to these unique dimensions. Our technicians regularly talk to our customers and help them determine the right silo for their situation.&rdquo; This flexibility is well-received by North American system designers, and A.B.S. has a number of distribution agreements in place. One performance characteristic unique to fabric silos like those manufactured by A.B.S. is that they allow operators to physically move the walls and sloped floors to keep pellets flowing through the system. Installers, however, are split on whether this is an advantage. Bailey sees it as an advantage. &ldquo;A fabric bin, you can actually push on the walls and keep working pellets through the system. If the bin has the proper angle of repose and the pellets are being funneled out of it properly, you&rsquo;ll get to a point where there is an inverted cone,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; &ldquo;You literally push on the corners, and they all fall into the center. In doing that, you keep the fines and dust working through the system.&rdquo; For Frank, this kind of tinkering runs counter to what he thinks his customer&rsquo;s want. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve come so far with automation in pellet systems,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Most of our systems require no more intervention than ash removal once every four weeks. We&rsquo;re that close to oil and gas solutions for reliability, and then you introduce a small thing like someone having to kick the bottom of a bag.&rdquo; Still, Frank finds it hard to argue with the economics of fabric silos. &ldquo;In some projects, the low cost and speed of deployment make bags the solution that ultimately gets chosen,&rdquo; he says. And noting that when deployed in a commercial environment with maintenance staff already in place, &ldquo;dealing with the required maintenance is not an issue.&rdquo; Considering Conveyance With indoor and outdoor, hard-sided or soft-sided storage solutions systems, designers and operators must consider pellet conveyance when making their final decisions. Quite simply, pellets must be able to move efficiently into the storage solution from a delivery truck as well as out of the storage solution into the pellet appliance. Pellets are either moved mechanically with augers or pneumatically with suction. Each conveyance option brings with it advantages and challenges. Tim Heutz, president of Heutz Premium Pellet Systems, a system installer and pellet delivery company based in Lewiston, Maine, spends a great deal of time thinking about the &ldquo;fill&rdquo; when designing a new system. &ldquo;We would like to see the straightest route and the shortest route possible,&rdquo; Heutz says. While his truck is capable of delivering pellets pneumatically at distances of around 100 feet, he works to avoid that whenever possible. &ldquo;A common problem is the storage unit is placed where there is a long run or lots of turns during the fill,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;This can cause a lot of pellet degradation.&rdquo; Heutz prefers that the distance pellets travel from a delivery truck to a house is less than 60 feet, and, if possible, that 60 feet would include the distance pellets travel once inside the building. For Heutz, longer fill distances, particularly if there are several corners, introduce a risk of subpar system performance as pellets tend to degrade and break down when moved long distances.&nbsp; &ldquo;These long fills cause questions of reliability in the overall solution, when actually it&rsquo;s just a matter of the fill not being thought out,&rdquo; he says. Augers can move pellets at almost any distance, but for the most part, they must be engineered with straight runs only. Any turn the system has to make must be broad, and any existing walls and infrastructure have to make way for an auger. &ldquo;Everything must get out of the augers way,&rdquo; Frank says. &ldquo;That can be challenging.&rdquo; Sites Dictate Engineers, installers and delivery companies all agree that for the most part, the unique realities of each project ultimately will decide which storage option will be deployed. A commercial location may have an annual usage that makes the capacity of an outdoor silo the most attractive solution, but out of the question because the site is being historically preserved. A residential project may opt for a fabric solution because the basement was hand dug over 100 years ago into stone and rubble, and a fabric silo is the only thing that will fit. Frank points to the infancy of the industry, noting that collectively, he and his industry colleagues are working up the learning curve. &ldquo;There are some guys out there who are pretty good and everyone is getting better, but right now I would say that people aren&rsquo;t giving enough up-front attention to pellet storage,&rdquo; he says. Frank continues by looking upstream to the cadre of architects and developers more accustomed to fossil fuel heating solutions. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve not had to give much thought to fuel storage because of our fossil fuel laziness. It&rsquo;s getting better, though,&rdquo; he says. Heutz, too, cites the industry&rsquo;s infancy for some of the challenges. That and system designers interest in providing the lowest-cost option in an effort to win a job. &ldquo;I think some designers think, &lsquo;If I do it this way it&rsquo;ll save costs and I&rsquo;ll get the job.&rsquo; But in the long run, if the customer is not happy, you&rsquo;ve done a disservice not only to yourself, but to the whole industry,&rdquo; he says. System designers feel the burden to design the right system falls squarely on their shoulders. &ldquo;&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if the customer is informed enough to be making those decisions,&rdquo; Bailey says. &ldquo;I think it comes back to the installing contractor and the decisions they are making.&rdquo; This is intuitive as customers don&rsquo;t want systems, they want heat and regardless of the fuel used, they rely on professionals to install something that works. The good news is each successful system installation creates new fans of pellet systems, and not just end users. More and more architects and developers are thinking about pellet systems to satisfy heat loads at their projects. Better still, Frank says, is that the practice of engaging with pellet system engineers early is on the rise and the results are very promising.&nbsp; &ldquo;The ones who have, have knocked it out of the park.&rdquo; Author: Tim Portz Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine tportz@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4969

First of Many: A 4-ton silo is delivered to the rk Miles lumberyard office in Machester Center, Vermont. With plenty of outdoor space, the business opted for an outdoor silo that will only need to be filled twice during the heating season to satisfy 

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FABRICATED FLEXIBILITY: The indoor fabric silo by German manufacturer A.B.S. offers system designers a low-cost solution that can be deployed in the most challenging of interior spaces in about half the time it takes to install a metal bin.  

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Lyme Green with Envy: Two OkoFEN soft-sided bags, each capable of holding 7 tons are a vital piece of this pellet boiler system that serves a district heating solution at a housing complex in Middlebury, Vermont.  

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CHALLENGING SITES: A low ceiling height commonly  confronts system designers and 
installers regularly in the Northeast. This galvanized steel bin starts to take shape amongst a hand-built foundation and vital structural members.  


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AGRICULTURAL  ROOTS: Many pellet storage solutions are adapted from grain storage and handling predecessors. Sheffield, Iowa-based Sukup Manufacturing Co. is seeing a nice influx of interest from the pellet sector in its galvanized steel bins and sil

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Meeting thermal needs with biomass requires system designers to consider a storage solution that works for the customer, the site and the delivery company. 

Putting Pellets Away

This summer, Vermont energy decision-makers questioning whether to back away from natural gas line expansion and hydroelectric energy.&nbsp; They are turning more to biomass, and scores of other states are facing similar questions and dilemmas. Why? Balancing the increase of renewables, and the environmental impacts of both renewables and fossil fuels, can confound even the most ardent environmentalist. In Vermont, for example, they aren&rsquo;t willing to increase renewable hydroelectricity because of the biodiversity of impacts of dams, but also the carbon impacts. Too often, states export the energy impacts of their decisions to other states.&nbsp; Getting cheap electricity from Quebec&rsquo;s huge hydroelectric dams is stirring up opposition from Vermont&rsquo;s energy activists, and from their liberal state officials.&nbsp; This is not just an issue for U.S. states, but for countries like Germany, which ended its domestic nuclear program only to buy nuclear energy from France.&nbsp; Luckily, Germany has the capacity to reduce its imported French electricity by doubling down on locally produced heat and electricity. What I find admirable about Vermont is its attempt&nbsp; to avoid exporting its energy impacts.&nbsp; Instead, it wants to build more local renewable hubs, moving away from both the regional electricity grid and the gas grid.&nbsp; It was the first state to ban fracking, but part of that result is buying fracked gas from other states. They are asking tough questions about how to address that. Many opponents of biomass energy should also calculate the impacts of where that energy will otherwise come from.&nbsp; For opponents and proponents, the issues also revolve around local impacts.&nbsp; Proponents want to keep energy dollars in their state and keep fossil fuels out, whereas opponents point to the local impact of increased smoke, and fears of additional logging. But at least the debate is about local impacts, rather than exporting the problems. With solar, the worst of the environmental impacts is often in China, where toxic chemicals are handled very poorly, but the benefits may be in Vermont, where electricity from nuclear power, coal or hydroelectric is avoided. The quicker we can develop energy sources that we are willing to endure without exporting the problems to other counties, states, or countries, the better. With biomass, emitting the smoke where we live forces us to clean it up, because its right in front of us and in the air we breathe. With most other energy forms, the negative externalities have been too easy to ignore. What&rsquo;s out of sight was put out of mind, and this led to massive oil companies like Shell and Exxon, which are barely accountable to anybody.&nbsp; We need more activists in China demanding that our solar panels don&rsquo;t pollute their water or air. And we need more activists in Michigan and Minnesota demanding an end to the rampant growth of certain outdoor wood boilers that foul the air. In both cases, Chinese and American local and national governments failed to act quickly enough so that renewable technology can advance without excessive externalities. And in both cases, activists, engineers and innovators have found far better ways to make solar panels and to provide efficient, clean heat from biomass. The transformation of energy in the U.S. is going through rapid changes, and it is places like Vermont that are asking the tough questions: How do we provide energy for our residents that doesn&rsquo;t harm other residents, whether they live next door or around the globe? Incentives for solar are on the downswing in many states because generous incentives over the past 5 to 10 years worked: They brought prices down while building an industry up. Soon, solar will be competitive without incentives. Incentives are just beginning to work with thermal biomass, as states across the Northeast, including Vermont, give support for indoor, automated pellet boilers.&nbsp; This is starting to bring those prices down. In Europe, pellet stove companies like Ravelli are starting to produce in such quantities that the per unit cost is dropping, just as it did with solar panels. And the service sector that oversees the quality of installations and does the repairs is now mature. As thermal biomass programs start requiring minimum efficiencies in the products they subsidize, the benefits to homeowners and institutions will be even greater, and the externalities even smaller. Policymakers, activists and innovators in all states are working on these issues, but so far, it&rsquo;s only in a dozen or so states where the momentum is really shifting.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s time to localize our energy and its impacts, and Vermont is as good a place to start as anywhere. Authors: John Ackerly President, Alliance for Green Heat jackerly@forgreenheat.org 301-204-9562

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Too often, states export the energy impacts of their decisions to other states.  This  is not just an issue for U.S. states, but for countries like Germany, which ended its domestic nuclear program only to buy nuclear energy from France. 

Localizing Energy  Downsides

Since its founding in 2004, the Enviva family of companies has grown into one of the leading manufacturers of wood pellets in the U.S. Its first pellet plant began operations in 2007, and over the past few years, the company has expanded its production and distribution capabilities to provide increasing amounts of pellets for use at coal-fired power stations. This year alone, Enviva will provide approximately 2 million metric tons of wood pellets to the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia from its six, soon-to-be seven, pellet plants distributed across the Southeast U.S. Enviva ships these pellets from three port sites, and is in the process of adding a fourth. The company maintains long-term lease agreements at the Port of Mobile in Alabama and the Port of Panama City in Florida. The remaining two port facilities&ndash;&ndash;Enviva Port of Chesapeake, Virginia, and new facilities under development at the Port of Wilmington in North Carolina&ndash;&ndash;are company-owned. &ldquo;By controlling the pellet production process from forest to customer, we are able to ensure the consistency and quality of our product,&rdquo; says John Keppler, company chairman and CEO. The Enviva family of companies includes Enviva Partners LP and Enviva Development Holdings LLC, a wholly owned private subsidiary. The locations of the pellet plants owned by Enviva Partners, and the number of metric tons each handles per year include: Amory, Mississippi, 110,000 mt; Wiggins, Mississippi, 110,000 mt; Ahoskie, North Carolina, 370,000 mt;&nbsp; Northampton, North Carolina, 500,000 mt.; and Cottondale, Florida, 650,000 mt. Enviva Development Holdings acquired the Cottondale plant from Green Circle Energy Inc. earlier this year and contributed it to Enviva Partners in April. A separate pellet plant located in Southampton, Virginia, is owned by Enviva Wilmington Holdings LLC, a joint venture between Enviva Partners&rsquo; sponsor Enviva Holdings LP, Hancock Natural Resources Group Inc. and certain other affiliates of John Hancock Life Insurance Co. In addition to owning the Southampton plant, the joint venture owns the manufacturing facility under construction in Sampson County, North Carolina, and the terminal at the Port of Wilmington, North Carolina, both of which should be completed early next year. These developments and others are underway in response to the rapidly expanding market for pellets. Market Expansion Enviva primarily sells to customers in the U.K. and Europe, where demand for pellets as a renewable energy resource continues to grow. According to consulting firm Hawkins Wright, European demand is expected to reach 38 million metric tons by 2020, up from 9.9 million in 2013. Several recent announcements and actions in key markets highlight the growth potential in the wood pellet industry. For example, three new, large-scale biomass plants are currently moving forward in the U.K.: MGT, RWE&rsquo;s Lynemouth, and Drax&rsquo;s third biomass-converted unit at its power station. In the Netherlands, several utility-led, large-scale biomass cofiring projects and a number of biomass-based industrial steam projects are bidding for new government-backed contracts. Independent market analysts anticipate these projects will create approximately 7 million tons of new demand over the next several years in these two markets alone. &nbsp;Growth is also expected in the rest of Europe, Asia and the U.S., where the U.S. EPA recently issued its Clean Power Plan, establishing binding targets for emissions reductions in each of the 50 states. The worldwide demand for wood pellets is projected to grow at an annual rate of more than 20 percent for the next five years, with the largest increases likely to occur in Northern Europe, South Korea and Japan. Keppler says Enviva is in active negotiations for additional fuel-supply contracts to target these markets, particularly the new major utility conversions in the U.K. &ldquo;In an industry that is growing at approximately 20 percent per year, we expect to not only re-contract the volumes within our portfolio, but also for our sponsor to enter into material additional volumes that underpin its capacity development activities and provide a foundation and opportunities for longer term growth for the partnership,&rdquo; he says. Advantageous Access Enviva&rsquo;s port accessibility, which provides the necessary infrastructure to handle, store and prepare pellets for shipment to customers, allows the company&rsquo;s production capacity growth to remain stable. Strategically located just outside of Norfolk, Virginia, the Port of Chesapeake serves as one of Enviva&rsquo;s most opportune locations for receiving and shipping pellets. Enviva acquired this terminal in 2010. The port is its first company-owned, dry-bulk, deep-water marine terminal, which can host a wide variety of vessels, up to a 40-foot draft. &ldquo;Deepwater terminal infrastructure for dry-bulk cargo is perhaps the scarcest component in the global wood pellet supply chain,&rdquo; Keppler says. &ldquo;Given the fully contracted production capacity, we knew we would be building in and around the Port of Chesapeake&mdash;vertical integration made sense. For us, ownership of a deepwater terminal was not only financially sound, but it also gives us operating control over a critical activity where we can ensure safe handling of our product.&rdquo; The port serves as the shipment point for pellets manufactured at Enviva&rsquo;s mid-Atlantic facilities&mdash;Ahoskie and Northampton, North Carolina, and Southampton, Virginia, sites. Annually, these three plants collectively produce over 1.3 million metric tons of wood pellets. The pellets received are stored in two, large storage domes and loaded for export. Enviva primarily ships pellets using handymax and supramax ships, although the company did ship its first panamax-sized vessel earlier this year. The product shipped on these vessels is made from low-value material such as pulp wood and leftover biomass material including undersized or crooked trees, limbs, tops, wood chips and sawdust. &ldquo;Enviva&rsquo;s production plants are strategically located in regions with abundant wood fiber resources&mdash;parts of the American South where forest growth exceeds harvest in any given year, even after accounting for our activities,&rdquo; Keppler says. &ldquo;This ensures a sustainable supply of wood for pellet production.&rdquo; The company is also implementing a track-and-trace system that enables it to verify the source of every load of timber received by its facilities, and to monitor the supply chain, ensuring that harvests are conducted responsibly by trained loggers, best management practices are followed, and that Enviva understand other key characteristics of each tract supplying timber. &ldquo;Once pellets are produced, we undertake stringent quality monitoring of the product at each point along the distribution chain&mdash;from plant, to port, to dome, to ship,&rdquo; Keppler says. Both the Chesapeake facility and the new marine terminal being built in Wilmington provide direct, comparatively shorter shipping routes to the U.K. and the European Union, where their major customers are located, according to Keppler. &ldquo;This minimizes both our transport costs and our carbon footprint, maximizing the environmental and economic benefits we offer our customers,&rdquo; he says. Originally at the Chesapeake port site was Giant Cement&rsquo;s export terminal. Once Enviva acquired the terminal, very little construction was required, as much of the infrastructure from the original cement operation could be repurposed. The terminal has the ability to receive and store goods by truck, rail, ship and barge, although, given the proximity of the three large production plants to the port, pellets are currently principally received by truck. Approximately 160 trucks bring pellets from the three inland manufacturing facilities every day. The Norfolk Southern rail line that came with the acquisition is not being used, but can serve as an option for future consideration. A truck-unloading facility receives the pellets, which are discharged to a conveyor and transferred to the two, 45,000-metric-ton wood pellet storage domes on the site. When a vessel is loaded for a customer, the pellets are discharged via gravity-fed hoppers at the base of the domes and conveyed to the berth before being loaded onto ships via Enviva&rsquo;s dedicated shiploader. At the new marine terminal in Wilmington, pellets will be transported from the Sampson County plant by truck and the port will receive pellets by rail from a third-party producer. Secure Storage Storage capability is an important part of Enviva&rsquo;s overall pellet supply chain. The vessels used for storage are perhaps the most striking structures on the horizon of Enviva&rsquo;s terminal. Contrasted against the greenery of the nearby park, the blue water in the bay and the onsite structures&rsquo; shades of gray protrude two, imposing white orbs that glisten in the sun. Dome Technology of Idaho Falls, Idaho, built these striking spheres, and they are also constructing domes at the Port of Wilmington site. These structures make optimal vessels to store pellet fuel for a number of reasons. &ldquo;One is, they are unlike steel tanks or steel silos, which sweat when the temperature between the inside of the tank and the outside of the tank is different and condensation forms with the potential to damage the pellet,&rdquo; says Lane Roberts, business development sales manager with Dome Technology. &ldquo;There is no condensation with the domes, the outside of it is an airform, a material that is a waterproof membrane.&rdquo; Another benefit to the infrastructure is that it has a relatively small footprint on the port site. &ldquo;Instead of a warehouse that takes up a lot of square footage, we can get a lot more storage in the same square footage of a site,&rdquo; Roberts says. &ldquo;Silos have that same advantage, but often silos need deep foundations. A lot of times, even though it&rsquo;s tall like a silo, the dome can be built without deep foundations, or we can use different types of soil stabilization that costs less than deep foundations to support them.&rdquo; Roberts says a third advantage to the dome structures is that once the airform is inflated, all of the structural shell work can be performed inside it, almost like pitching a big tent to work inside. Production doesn&rsquo;t have to stop once the airform is inflated, and it can protect crew members from harsh weather during activities such as hanging rebar or spraying concrete. The airform itself is a polyester weave coated with PVC on both its inside and outside. Mold inhibitors Mold inhibitors and a UV-resistant coating are also applied to both sides of the fabric.&nbsp; After the airform is inflated, a primer is applied to the inside of the air form to securely bond the polyurethane foam to it. The polyurethane foam is sprayed about an inch-and-a-half thick, acting as a bonding agent. Steel rebar is attached to the foam, and then shotcrete is sprayed to embed the rebar. From initial inflation to completion, construction takes four to five months. &ldquo;Although there are less expensive means of storing wood pellets, we have concluded that the dome solution gives us much greater control over the safe handling and storage of our product,&rdquo; Keppler says. &ldquo;We have been able to engineer additional safety features into our storage solution including advanced temperature control technologies and fire detection, suppression and control systems.&rdquo; An array of sensors hanging from the dome shell monitor gas, heat and moisture. The aeration system in the domes controls the temperature of the pellets. Additionally, with the thin-shell concrete structure of the domes, they are built to withstand tornadoes, hurricane-force winds and earthquakes up to eight points on the Richter scale. Dome Technology has provided pellet storage domes with a range of capacities for a variety of producers including four, 80,000-ton storage domes for Drax Biomass in the U.K. The particular dome capacity at the Chesapeake location is due to site restrictions&mdash;originally on the site was a steel tank that had a foundation diameter of 175 feet. &ldquo;That gave us the diameter for the dome,&rdquo; Roberts says. &ldquo;We have a height restriction at the site of 157 feet for the dome shell, so that became our height.&rdquo; The second company-owned Wilmington port hosts similar domes to those at the Port of Chesapeake with 45,000-metric-ton-pellet capacities. In June, the first of the two domes was inflated, and July 29, the second went up. The $50 million export terminal expects about 30 to 40 ships to call at the port. The Enviva family of companies continues to expand its outreach as the demand for pellets rises in existing and budding markets in North America and overseas. Keppler believes it&rsquo;s effective storage and handling solutions that enable the company to maintain the integrity and high quality of its product, and ensure the consistent delivery of the product on time. &ldquo;It starts with safely receiving, storing and handling our fuel product,&rdquo; Keppler says. &ldquo;With supply not yet keeping up with the potential utility demand for our products, every ton matters, and storage provides the operational flexibility to manage dislocations in the market, with even limited inventory serving as a safety stock.&rdquo; Author: Katie Fletcher Associate Editor, Biomass Magazine kfletcher@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4920

Port Access: In 2010, Enviva acquired a deepwater terminal at the Port of Chesapeake, Virginia, which, from three of the companyâ€™s plants, receives Approximately 160 trucks of wood pellets a day for storage in two domes.  

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SHIPPING OVERSEAS: T Parker Host manages the port in Chesapeake, and Enviva has contracted them to help facilitate the loading and 
unloading of pellet shipments at the terminal. In 2014, 27 ships filled 
with pellets sailed from the port. 


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INDUSTRIAL AREA: Enviva's Chesapeake marine terminal is adjacent to other substantial industrial facilities including energy and military 
operations. The Port of Hampton Roads, which also includes Norfolk,  Portsmouth and Newport News, houses the la

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PROLONGED PROTECTION: Dome Technology is building its 14th wood pellet dome, for a total storage capacity of 700,000 metric tons. The domes at the Port of Chesapeake, combined, can hold 90,000 tons.  

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SAFETY FIRST: Enviva recently reported that more than 500,000 man-hours were worked without an OSHA recordable incident at its Northampton facility. The company also went one year without an OSHA recordable incident at its Ahoskie, North Carolina, pl

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CONVEYING CARGO: The Port of Chesapeake's truck-unloading facility receives 160 loads per day from three area pellet plants. The pellets are conveyed into storage domes and await shipment overseas. 


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TERMINAL SWITCH: Host Terminals began operating the Enviva terminal in 2011, but has been on site since 1999 when Giant Cement had its export facility there.


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By securing advantageous points of distribution in the Southeast and fine-tuning its transport and storage tactics, wood pellet giant Enviva is well-positioned to satisfy growing overseas demand. 

Master of Logistics

&ldquo;What goes up must come down, Spinnin&rsquo; wheel, got to go round...&rdquo; (&ldquo;Spinning Wheel,&rdquo; Blood Sweat &amp; Tears, 1969). As this year&rsquo;s harsh Maine winter drew to a close, pellet boiler systems benefiting from Efficiency Maine&rsquo;s $5,000 rebate incentive were being installed at the rate of one per day. In June, only 15 were installed. The halving of installation rates precisely mirrors the 50 percent drop in oil prices from a year ago. Nevertheless, Efficiency Maine is proud to point out that the 500-plus pellet boilers installed in the program&rsquo;s 20-month span is more than in all the other New England states plus New York combined. As evidence that the program partnership with the private sector continues to move forward, the agency is currently considering extending the incentive program to include a forced-air pellet heating system being introduced by a Maine firm. Vendor interest in Efficiency Maine&rsquo;s incentive for pellet stoves remains muted. While utilization of the rebate has increased somewhat since the incentive was doubled from $250 to $500, the total number of pellet stoves installed under the program remains less than 100. Yet a survey of Maine residences shows that over 40 percent have a wood stove, pellet stove or fireplace. One explanation for the low rate of incentive utilization is that &ldquo;the stoves pretty much sell themselves,&rdquo; with dealers not bothering with qualifying for the incentives. In the bagged pellet marketplace, a number of large retailers, including Walmart and Tractor Supply, are seeking to move bagged pellets at this time, with marquee signage urging customers to &rdquo;buy your wood pellets now!&rdquo; Maine&rsquo;s four pellet manufacturers are responding to anticipated healthy demand. Corinth Pellets, now owned by a major Maine logging firm, has undertaken major renovations and expansion since purchase over a year ago, more than tripling previous production capacity. Maine Woods Pellets, similarly owned by a logging firm, is also expanding capacity while embarked upon an electricity-generating project on the lumber side. Geneva Wood Fuels and Northeast Pellets have made significant capital improvements as well. While the Canadian exchange rate and related competition is a factor, there is a general sense that Maine pellets are now well-established in the Northeast marketplace. Irritants remain. Maine&rsquo;s legislature recently changed the law to allow licensed oil-burner technicians to install pellet boilers. This work had previously been limited to technicians with solid fuel licenses. However, implementation of this new authority awaits action by the Maine Fuel Board. This board has, at least until now, been very resistant to &ldquo;disruptive technology.&rdquo; Maine is the most rural state in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Over 61 percent of the population lives in communities of less than 2,500 persons. For years, I lived in a Maine county where 100 percent of the population was designated as rural; we had one traffic light. Bulk pellet delivery in these locations is a challenge until we develop greater customer density. However, the marketplace responds. One of our association&rsquo;s newest members, a major fuel oil firm, has created a bulk delivery truck utilizing a large pellet storage bin, rather than a stainless steel tank. Heutz Premium Pellets, serving Maine&rsquo;s least rural counties, has purchased a second bulk delivery truck. We will get this done.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Meanwhile, as pellet boiler sales slacken here, our association seeks to help our members who see opportunities in other states. We were pleased to join with similar groups and the Northern Forest Center in a recent letter to the Clean States Energy Alliance, a national group that is undertaking a review of wood pellet boiler incentive policies. Our concern is that CESA might recommend incentive standards so perfect that they don&rsquo;t work. Our letter cites the need to avoid &ldquo;system design, technology, or installation requirements that increase costs above typical market standards.&rdquo; The letter also stresses the need for incentives that provide customer choice, are user-friendly, and minimize financial risk for installers. &ldquo;New Hampshire&rsquo;s, Vermont&rsquo;s, and Maine&rsquo;s incentive programs best reflect these practices,&rdquo; our letter states. &ldquo;Their effectiveness is self-evident.&rdquo; The letter notes that the three northern New England states have generated more than 1,000 pellet boiler incentives since their programs began; Massachusetts and New York, with much stricter incentive criteria, have generated 70. &lsquo;Nuf said. Author: Bill Bell Executive Director, Maine Pellet Fuels Association 207-752-1392 feedalliance@gwi.net

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As this year's harsh Maine winter drew to a close, pellet boiler systems benefiting from Efficiency Maine's $5,000 rebate incentive were being installed at the rate of one per day. In June, only 15 were installed. 

September 2015

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Biomass's Role in Clean Power Plan

Getting It Right

Is the Third Time the Charm?

Localizing Energy Downsides

Insight on Incentives

Featured

California's Homeless Biomass Problem

Putting Pellets Away

Master of Logistics

Contributions

The Virtuous Cycle of Biomass Supply

Departments

From Blueprint to Baler

Synthesizing Substrates

September 2015.css-7jxktu{position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;right:0px;height:3px;border-radius:3px;background-color:var(--chakra-colors-brandBlack);}

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Biomass's Role in Clean Power Plan

Getting It Right

Is the Third Time the Charm?

Localizing Energy Downsides

Insight on Incentives

Featured

California's Homeless Biomass Problem

Putting Pellets Away

Master of Logistics

Contributions

The Virtuous Cycle of Biomass Supply

Departments

From Blueprint to Baler

Synthesizing Substrates

September 2015