When the Calgren Ethanol Biodigester officially opened in Tulare County, California, early this year, it represented a major commitment by the state of California to employ sustainable energy production. Located in the town of Pixley, the biodigester utilizes waste from dairy operation Four J Farms to power the production of tens of millions of gallons of ethanol, all consumed in the Central Valley. It is the first digester of its kind in the state, relying on agricultural waste to create renewable natural gas to power another renewable energy facility, essentially creating a zero-waste life-cycle. The two-stage, mixed plug-flow Pixley Anaerobic Digester was designed by DVO Inc. of Chilton, Wisconsin, and built by Regenis of Ferndale, Washington, and is the first system in California to be 100 percent American made and constructed. In the Beginning The genesis of the project dates back to a conversation Daryl Maas of Farm Power had with Calgren&rsquo;s president, Lyle Schlyer, nearly six years ago. &ldquo;Daryl suggested we apply for a California Energy Commission grant to build a digester on-site and process dairy waste,&rdquo; Schlyer says. &ldquo;He owns and operates similar digesters in Washington and elsewhere. Since we are always looking for ways to lower the carbon intensity of our renewable fuel ethanol, we readily embraced the idea. Daryl stayed on and managed the project for us.&rdquo; Biogas generated at the plant&rsquo;s site would drive Calgren toward a more sustainable business model and reduce cost, while enabling production of its own power. The company reached out to DVO because of its expertise in this area. &ldquo;We were first approached in 2010,&rdquo; says Melissa Van Ornum, vice president of marketing for DVO Anaerobic Digesters. &rdquo;The basic idea was there, but it took some time to get Calgren and the dairy to come together and put all the puzzle pieces together. We are the largest biodigester company in the country. We have a lot of experience; we&rsquo;re currently in 18 states and have ventured internationally as well. We have a proven design, which always makes it easier when approaching investors.&rdquo; There were some unforeseen challenges after the idea was conceived, so the project took a little longer to come to fruition than Schlyer had anticipated. &ldquo;Satisfying California&rsquo;s Environmental Quality Act was by far the biggest challenge,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Unfortunately, CEQA can be easily highjacked and used for unintended purposes. In our case, it was used to oppose an environmentally sound project.&rdquo; Van Ornum notes that permitting in California is never easy. &ldquo;The fact that Calgren already had the steam turbine in place&mdash;so we weren&rsquo;t having to permit a new engine&mdash;was a huge help,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;They had to get a new permit, but it was more like modifying an existing one. That made it a lot easier.&rdquo; Another challenge was the community wasn&rsquo;t originally on board and needed some convincing to assuage their concerns. Van Ornum says that educating the community played a large part in getting the project up and running. &ldquo;Many were concerned,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Few knew anything about digesters, and we needed to explain that it wouldn&rsquo;t explode, there were no crazy odors, and all these other things that people worry about. It helped that we could explain what it was and it didn&rsquo;t take long for people to come around.&rdquo; Mostly, it was the fear of the unknown, Schlyer adds. &ldquo;Our opponents were concerned about odors and the idea of waste processing in their vicinity,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;To help allay their concerns, we downsized and tightened up project parameters. We also agreed to relocate the digester from the north side of our facility to the south side.&rdquo; The key in getting the system permitted and approved in California, Schlyer notes, was perseverance by everyone involved, especially when it related to CEQA. Other important agencies were much more open to the idea and worked with Calgren to make the digester a reality. &ldquo;The agencies with oversight of environmental emissions and the like were generally helpful,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Tulare County was exceedingly supportive, as was the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the California Energy Commission.&rdquo; The project was conceived in late 2009, and all CEQA issues were finally resolved in February of 2014. &ldquo;We commenced construction immediately thereafter, and had the digester in operation by September 2014,&rdquo; Schlyer says. &ldquo;Initially, we hoped biogas would provide up to 20 percent of our fuel requirements, but we have had to pare back our expectations.&rdquo; The plant officially opened in February. Building the Digester Regenis served as the general contractor of the anaerobic digester, including design and layout of the facility. &ldquo;Being the largest on-farm anaerobic digester contractor in the west, we have a vast knowledge of design and layout of digester facilities, which helps the owner achieve maximum operation in all facets of the facility,&rdquo; says Mike Apol, Regenis&rsquo; regional manager for California and project manager for the Pixley Biogas Project. The biggest challenge of the building process, according to Apol, was its short construction schedule. &ldquo;The excavation started in March 2014, and the project was complete and producing biogas by September,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We were able to complete the project due to the team environment from all of the parties involved.&rdquo; How It Works Constructed with the help of a $4.6 million grant from the California Energy Commission, in its simplest definition, the digester takes in cow manure from Four J Farms, and the generated methane is captured and burned as clean biogas to power the Calgren ethanol production process. The digester greatly reduces bacteria and pathogens so dairy farmers can reuse the liquids (water) safely on their crops, Schlyer says. The pipeline that sends the raw manure to the digester also pipes back the digester liquid into the lagoon, which is used on crops, Van Ornum further explains. &ldquo;In California, where drought is a problem, the farmer has liquid and they can play Mother Nature. It allows for more flexibility for the dairy farm as well.&rdquo; Benefits Abound The Pixley Biogas anaerobic digester is the first anaerobic digester on a California farm permitted to use all feedstocks, including municipal green waste and food processing waste. According to Apol, one of the main reasons the finished project is so important to the industry is the environmental benefit in the reduction of methane being released into the atmosphere, which is 22 times more potent than any other green house gas. &ldquo;A second reason was the opportunity to bring industry and agriculture together on the same project,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I believe this is the first time this has happened due to the close proximity of the ethanol plant and the dairy, which would both benefit from the byproducts of the anaerobic digester.&rdquo; Schlyer says that digesters lower the life-cycle carbon intensity of renewable fuels, something critical in California due to its Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Currently, other jurisdictions are considering similar policies. &ldquo;We hope our current digester is but the first of many similar projects,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Liquid fuel is a mainstay of our transportation system. Using renewable biogas as process energy for the production of renewable fuel liquids sort of maximizes the whole concept.&rdquo; A New Trend? While digesters are often talked about as solutions for sustainable energy, the number of operating facilities today in the U.S. doesn&rsquo;t come close to mirroring the industry&rsquo;s potential, especially in California. That could be changing in the years ahead, however. In January, the CEC issued rules that could increase the number of digester projects around the state. Apol notes that Reginis&rsquo;s mission is to reimagine reusable resources, and in California, the potential is nearly limitless. He believes that implementing digesters around the state would not only create hundreds of new construction and operation jobs in rural communities, but that organic waste is in such supply that it could power up to three million homes, or generate 2.5 billion gallons of clean, ultra-low carbon transportation fuels. Around the industry, Western Plains Energy has an ethanol production facility in Gove County, Kansas, producing fuel-grade ethanol as well as distillers dry and wet grains. The feedstock used to produce ethanol includes corn and milo. Other examples include United Ethanol, which installed an anaerobic digester in an ethanol plant in Milton, Wisconsin, in 2010; and AG Processing Inc., which has an ethanol plant in Hastings, Nebraska. And the first three commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants that are in varying stages of commissioning in the U.S. have all added digesters on site and are utilizing them for process energy as well. According to Schlyer, digesting waste at ethanol plants makes a lot of sense, especially if there are cattle nearby. &ldquo;I would not be surprised to someday see waste digesters at a majority of ethanol plants,&rdquo; he says. Others in the industry aren&rsquo;t so sure, perhaps suggesting that they aren't a good fit for all operations. &ldquo;You must recognize that offsetting your natural gas with a biodigester is an enormous undertaking,&rdquo; says one industry insider, who requested anonymity. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had several problems with ours&mdash;we had struggles. It&rsquo;s a very difficult economic proposition, unless you have a strong feedstock source. Most of the time that needs to be free.&rdquo; Meanwhile, the Calgren digester has been operational for almost a year, producing somewhere around 350 cubic feet of biogas per minute. That number is expected to increase in the years ahead, providing a savvy sustainable energy solution for all in the area.&nbsp; Things are running smoothly and it&rsquo;s now working wonderfully, Shyler says, but as new concepts often require, it came with a little trial and error. There have been a few equipment issues and some learning curves for the workers, he adds, but overall, Calgren has been pleased with its operational performance. Author: Keith Loria Freelance writer, Biomass Magazine freelancekeith@gmail.com

The 55-MMgy Calgren Renewable Fuels plant is colocated with an anerobic digester that accepts cow manure via tanker truck. Biogas resulting from the digestion process is captured and combusted to generate process power for ethanol production. 

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WHAT'S INSIDE: The digester building houses the piping and equipment related to the biogas mixing system inside DVO Inc.'s patented digester.  

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California's Calgren Renewable Fuels uses renewable energy generated onsite to power its renewable fuel production process.

Twofold Renewable in Tulare County

This summer, the Algae Biomass Organization achieved its most important legislative priority: the approval by the U.S. EPA carbon capture and utilization (CCU) for power plants seeking to meet emissions reduction goals. &nbsp;The Clean Power Plan notes that &ldquo;state plans may allow affected EGU (electric generating units) to use qualifying CCU technologies to reduce CO2 emissions that are subject to an emission standard, or those that are counted when demonstrating achievement of the CO2 emission performance rates or a state rate-based or mass-based CO2 emission.&rdquo; While there is still work to be done, especially regarding how EPA will qualify utilization technologies, this is a huge win for the algae industry. Just one year prior, the idea of including carbon utilization in climate planning was not even considered by the EPA, Congress or the Obama administration. Our members never gave up, and their persistence&mdash;and a winning argument&mdash;carried the day. The rule gives new certainty to a number of U.S. companies working to commercialize algae-based technologies that can convert carbon dioxide generated at power plants into fuels, feeds, fertilizers and other valuable products. The change in course by the EPA, from not mentioning utilization in its early drafts to fully supporting the technology, is also a testament to what a relatively small but committed group of companies and researchers can accomplish on the policy front. To get the EPA to acknowledge algae and carbon utilization, the members of ABO came together in a coordinated effort. Among the tools we deployed: &bull; Countless meetings with the offices of elected officials that could inform the EPA about carbon utilization potentials in their districts. &bull; Letters directly from ABO members to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy about the importance of supporting utilization technologies. &bull; A White House petition asking the administration to advocate for utilization in the Clean Power Plan. &bull; Meetings with EPA staff and official comments that were directly informed by the experiences and plans of ABO members commercializing algae cultivation technologies that can consume huge volumes of CO2. &bull; Invaluable support from members of Congress, who communicated with EPA and introduced legislative proposals to support CCU technologies. &bull; A public information campaign that included outreach to media, a website on carbon utilization, and tours of algae facilities across the U.S. It worked. The EPA&rsquo;s rule is clear evidence that our message that carbon utilization is a common-sense, market-driven approach, with bipartisan support throughout Congress, is being heard. The support is spreading across agencies, evidenced by the U.S. DOE recently awarding funds to carbon capture research to two efforts that will use algae. At ABO, we are excited by the momentum, and are reminded by words of anthropologist Margaret Mead: &ldquo;Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.&rdquo; At ABO, we are building new truth into these words, and we have no plans to let up. Our attention will be on the EPA&rsquo;s intent to establish a mechanism for deciding how a particular carbon utilization technology can be used to meet a state&rsquo;s carbon reduction goals. What variables will EPA use to determine if a particular utilization approach will qualify? How can a company ensure the EPA has accurate information about its technologies? It is very possible that some technologies will not be certified by EPA without a concerted effort to educate the agency. Given what we have been able to accomplish in the past year, we are looking forward to that phase of the campaign. We invite any utilization technology developer to work with us. The more voices we can raise about the potential of using waste gases in beneficial ways the more likely they will given the green light by the EPA. Author: Matt Carr Executive Director, Algae Biomass Organization www.algaebiomass.org mcarr@algaebiomass.org

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his summer, the Algae Biomass Organization achieved its most important legislative priority: the approval by the U.S. EPA carbon capture and utilization (CCU) for power plants seeking to meet emissions reduction goals.

The Little Algae That Could

About 40,000 people pass through IKEA&rsquo;s 274,000-square-foot furniture store in Emeryville, California, every week, but what few of them know is that the power to run the hopping San Francisco-area retail wonderland is produced on-site from rooftop solar arrays and a newly installed fuel cell system tucked away behind the building. &ldquo;We really haven&rsquo;t gotten too much response from customers about it,&rdquo; says Lisa Ciccoli, IKEA Emeryville&rsquo;s local marketing specialist. &ldquo;Some of them see it in the back of the parking lot. It just looks like a generator. We&rsquo;re going to work on a better PR campaign this fall to talk about all the things we are doing here.&rdquo; IKEA&rsquo;s investment in fuel cell technology at the Emeryville location&mdash;one of 40 retail stores in the U.S. and, according to Ciccoli, one of the smaller locations&mdash;reflects the company&rsquo;s goal to be energy-independent by 2020 and complements other IKEA renewable programs in the U.S., including solar presence at nearly 90 percent of its locations, a geothermal heating and cooling system at two stores, and two wind farms totaling 104 turbines. At the Emeryville store, the 300-kW fuel cell is IKEA&rsquo;s latest move to be energy- and resource-conscious, as it joins a 2,394-panel solar array covering 68,000 square feet, water-saving urinals and taps in the restrooms, use of an energy-management system to efficiently use energy in the store, and four electric vehicle charging stations in the parking lot&mdash;but that&rsquo;s not all. &ldquo;We have changed out all our spotlights in our store to LED lighting and we have the ambition to convert all our external lights on the property to LED,&rdquo; Ciccoli says, &ldquo;and we divert more than 80 percent of the waste generated in our building from going to the landfill.&rdquo; The fuel cell system was manufactured by Sunnyvale, California-based Bloom Energy Corp., which has installed more than 160 MW of its systems in the U.S. and Japan. IKEA&rsquo;s Bloom Energy Server fuel cell is marketed as powered by biogas, but this is not quite accurate. A spokesperson for Bloom Energy tells Biomass Magazine that the company&rsquo;s systems don&rsquo;t actually run on biogas, but rather what&rsquo;s referred to as directed biogas. In other words, a customer using Bloom Energy&rsquo;s fuel cell technology purchases biogas from a remote location&mdash;sometimes in-state and sometimes not&mdash;and that biogas is injected into the natural gas pipeline where it is used somewhere, sometime in some diluted, unknown concentration. &ldquo;The biogas for our project is presently coming from Arizona,&rdquo; Ciccoli says. &ldquo;This source of biogas is connected to the pipeline, which connects to California but not directly to our store. This process is called physical displacement,&rdquo; adding that she believes the term &ldquo;directed biogas&rdquo; is used for tracking in-state purchases of biogas for tax credit purposes. &ldquo;In California you get tax credits for having a fuel cell and get additional credits when you use biogas from California,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;We were not able to purchase biogas in California because there was no supply.&rdquo; SOFC Technology Similar to batteries, fuel cells use anodes, cathodes and electrolytes to produce electricity. The difference, however, is that fuel cells continuously make electricity when fed a constant fuel source like natural gas or biogas. Bloom Energy&rsquo;s fuel cells are the solid oxide variety. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) operate between 1,100 and 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. &ldquo;Each SOFC is made of ceramic materials forming three layers: the anode, the cathode and the electrolyte,&rdquo; PNNL&rsquo;s website explains. For a solid oxide fuel cell, the electrolyte is a solid ceramic material. The anode and cathode are made from special inks that coat the electrolyte, according to Bloom Energy, which adds that, unlike other types of fuel cells, no precious metals, corrosive acids or molten materials are required. &ldquo;Air is pumped up against an outer layer, the cathode,&rdquo; PNNL describes. &ldquo;Oxygen from the air becomes a negatively charged ion, O2-, where the cathode and the inner electrolyte layer meet. The ion moves through the electrolyte to reach the final layer, the anode. There, the oxygen ion reacts with a fuel.&rdquo; The reaction creates electricity, water and only &ldquo;small amounts of carbon dioxide,&rdquo; according to Bloom Energy. The water is recycled to produce steam needed to reform the fuel, and the process also generates the heat required by the fuel cell. The advantage of fuel cells, according to PNNL, is that they&rsquo;re more efficient than traditional power generation. &ldquo;For example, the combustion engines of portable generators only convert about 18 percent of the chemical energy in fuel into electricity,&rdquo; PNNL states. &ldquo;In contrast, some SOFCs can achieve up to 60 percent efficiency.&rdquo; Many other well-known companies are using Bloom Energy&rsquo;s fuel cell technology to provide on-site power, including Walmart, FedEx and Apple, to name a few. A couple of years ago, Apple&rsquo;s datacenter in Maiden, North Carolina, installed a series of Bloom Energy Servers to generate 4.8 MW of power. While Apple declined an interview with Biomass Magazine, the company&rsquo;s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Form 556 application from 2012 was obtained, which explains the company&rsquo;s project. Apple&rsquo;s Maiden project consists of 24 200-kW fuel cell systems using Bloom Energy&rsquo;s SOFC technology. On fuel use, the application states, &ldquo;The systems will be fueled with biogas that will be transported via natural gas pipeline system. &hellip; Once injected into the pipeline system, it comingles with conventional natural gas and is indistinguishable from conventional natural gas. &hellip; The biogas, having been upgraded/cleaned to pipeline-quality and then injected into the natural gas pipeline system, displaces a comparable quantity of conventional natural gas. &hellip; The North Carolina Utilities Commission ruled that biogas fuel, which is derived from a renewable energy source, cleaned to pipeline quality, injected into the pipeline system and nominated for an electric generation facility within the state of North Carolina, is a renewable energy resource known as &lsquo;directed biogas.&rsquo;&rdquo; Biomass Magazine couldn&rsquo;t confirm where Apple was purchasing its biogas from, but the datacenter is about six miles from the 800-acre Blackburn Landfill, also in Catawba County, North Carolina. The landfill captures its biogas and generates 3 MW of electricity at the colocated Catawba County EcoComplex, which is tied into the grid. Carbonate Technology There are four primary fuel cell technologies, including carbonate, solid oxide, phosphoric acid and polymer membrane. While Bloom Energy&rsquo;s systems utilize SOFC and run on so-called directed biogas, FuelCell Energy Inc.&rsquo;s systems leverage carbonate fuel cell technology, which the company says is well-suited for megawatt-class applications. Moreover, some of FuelCell Energy&rsquo;s systems run on actual biogas. The company is, however, researching SOFC technology for smaller, submegawatt applications. The carbonate fuel cell derives its name from its electrolyte, which consists of potassium and lithium carbonates. This spring, FuelCell Energy announced execution of a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the city of Riverside, California, to install a 1.4-MW combined-heat-and-power plant at the Riverside Regional Water Quality Control Plant. FuelCell Energy&rsquo;s systems differ from Bloom Energy&rsquo;s not only in its use of carbonate vs. SOFC technology, but also in its use of CHP vs. Bloom Energy&rsquo;s all-electric solution. The fuel cell power plant will convert actual biogas produced on-site from the wastewater treatment process to power the facility and two electric vehicle charging stations, and provide thermal energy for the water treatment process. &ldquo;It is great to provide the city of Riverside with a power generation solution that will deliver energy savings and energy security in an environmentally friendly way with no capital investment required by the city,&rdquo; says Chip Bottone, CEO of FuelCell Energy. &ldquo;Our fuel cell power plants are fuel flexible, utilizing on-site biogas for this application, which is carbon-neutral due to the renewable nature of the fuel source.&rdquo; Ernest Marquez Jr., Riverside&rsquo;s principal engineer, says, &ldquo;The benefits of this fuel-cell project are that we avoid the flaring of the biogas, we remove future compliance obligations from the South Coast Air Quality Management District regulations due to the emission of only water vapor from the fuel cells, and we obtain carbon credits from the California Air Resources Board. Fuel cells operating on renewable biogas solve a number of our issues and concerns about permitting and sustainability that are not easily or completely addressed by other forms of on-site power generation.&rdquo; Author: Ron Kotrba Senior Editor, Biomass Magazine 218-745-8347 rkotrba@bbiinternational.com

QUASI ENERGY INDEPENDENCE: IKEA, the worldâ€™s leading home furnishings retailer, announced July 1 it officially had flipped the switch on a fuel cell 
system installed at its retail location in Emeryville, California. 

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APPLEâ€™S BIOGAS NEIGHBOR: Just six miles from Appleâ€™s datacenter in Maiden, North Carolina, is the Blackburn Landfill, which captures its biogas and produces 3 MW of electricity that is tied into the grid.  

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BIOGAS-POWERED: A fuel cell power plant, similar to this one located at a wastewater treatment center in San Jose, is being installed at a wastewater treatment facility in Riverside, California, where it will be fueled by biogas produced on-site.   

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More and more big-name companies are installing fuel cells, some powered by biogas and some marketed as such, for on-site power production. 

A Trending On-site Power Option

One of the greatest attributes of biogas is the flexible nature of the resource. It can be generated from a variety of organic feedstocks such as food waste, livestock manure, crop residues, biosolids, or solid waste in a landfill. Its utilization is also flexible, as biogas can be burned for electrical generation or heat, cleaned and used as a replacement for natural gas or compressed for use as a vehicle fuel. There is even early stage research being performed to figure out how biogas can be a feedstock for biobased chemical production to displace petroleum in materials and products we use every day. The flexibility of biogas offers many advantages, but the flexibility of the resource also presents several challenges. Given the multiple project configurations for biogas projects, it can be difficult to design policy initiatives aimed at taking advantage of biogas utilization. Biogas is much more than a low-carbon energy resource. It can be a more effective tool in managing organic waste feedstocks because biogas generation relies on anaerobic digestion to produce the gas. Biogas projects can also result in other positive environmental benefits such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved air and water quality. Oftentimes, to make biogas projects economical, monetization of additional environmental benefits is required. However, not all U.S. markets offer the ability to monetize nonenergy benefits. Given the multiple biogas project configurations and the need to bundle various economic benefits to make projects pencil out, squeezing the most value out of projects all along the supply and production chain is critical. Many biogas projects are feasible when focusing on onsite energy production and use. This can also make a project more efficient, using the same amount of feedstock to produce multiple outputs. Combined-heat-and-power (CHP) projects using biogas as the primary fuel source can achieve efficiencies of up to 80 percent when compared with electricity generated at central station facilities with no heat capture and reuse. Livestock-based biogas projects have been able to achieve greater project efficiencies by capturing waste heat from the engine generator and using the heat in the barn or parlor. There are also technologies that provide cooling options for recovered thermal energy. Recovered energy is an opportunity to improve project economics and efficiency by avoiding energy purchases. Biogas projects that clean or upgrade raw biogas to make a product that is chemically identical to conventional natural gas also have the opportunity to integrate CHP into the project configuration. A portion of the biogas can be used to generate electricity, which can then be used onsite to power gas cleanup equipment. Projects can also recover thermal energy for utilization elsewhere in the production process. These project configurations can have multiple energy end uses for biogas and are a combination of onsite utilization and offsite distribution. For as long as I have worked on biogas projects, the ultimate project configuration has been to colocate a biogas project next to a greenhouse. A greenhouse, which has large thermal and electrical needs, presents the opportunity to have a closed-loop system where food scraps could be a part of the feedstock mix in a digester, and the digested material would be an excellent fertilizer for food grown inside. There are examples of landfill gas projects that have partially demonstrated this model, but as anaerobic digestion system costs decline, we could see more of this model implemented across the country. Although biogas projects have multiple configurations that present some challenges in resource scale up, the flexible feedstock sources and end-use utilization make them a worthwhile pursuit. The key will be putting together all the different financial benefits to get the most value out of each project.&nbsp; Author: Amanda Bilek Government Affairs Manager, Great Plains Institute 612-278-7118 abilek@gpisd.net

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Although biogas projects have multiple configurations that present some challenges in resource scale up, the flexible feedstock sources and end-use utilization make them a worthwhile pursuit.

Maximizing Biogas Project Value

In the winter, if the breeze is just right, you may smell a hint of a campfire entering or leaving the Bismarck State College Aquatic and Wellness Center located in Bismarck, North Dakota. Operations Superintendent Ryan Geerdes says, although it may be over simplifying, &ldquo;When you break it down, it&rsquo;s just a big bonfire that is computer controlled.&rdquo; In 2010, when the facility was built, the decision was made to generate heat using wood waste sourced from the Bismarck Municipal Landfill. After working with the fuel over the past few years, Geerdes and others have devised an effective way to heat the facility, pool and domestic water at a fraction of the cost to other fuel sources. Although they didn&rsquo;t start where they are today, the facility&rsquo;s King Coal boiler now runs at about 85 to 90 percent efficiency in the winter. The boiler adds to the list of reasons to visit the facility. Kevin Klipfel, facilities and program director with the Bismarck Parks and Recreation District, highlights the system&rsquo;s teaching-tool nature. &ldquo;The local college has brought classes over to look at the system and to educate the kids on what is involved,&rdquo; he says. The approximate 66,000-square-foot BSC Aquatic and Wellness Center is located on the college campus. The building houses a 50-meter competition pool, diving, recreation and lap pools, and the wellness center includes strength and cardiovascular equipment. The center also has a playground, a group fitness and dance studio and meeting rooms. A variety of people utilize the facility, and it hosts a number of events&mdash;from high school state swim meets to the Paralympic Pan Am games this December. Whether it&rsquo;s a therapy session in the warm rec pool or a hot shower after weightlifting, the combustion of wood waste makes them possible. Big Learning Curve The idea to install a biomass heating system at the BSC facility all stemmed from personnel learning about a smaller-scale biomass unit the Bismarck landfill was using to heat its shop in the winter months. Phase one of the project was a feasibility study. Randy Bina, executive director of the Bismarck Parks and Recreation District, says the study, which was part of a grant application and overall justification for the system, yielded positive results. &ldquo;It showed that there would be substantial savings on heating costs for the facility,&rdquo; Bina says. Grant funding from the North Dakota Forest Service Fuel for Schools Program was received to assist with the purchase of the boiler technology and some of the wood waste handling equipment, including a payloader and trailer to haul the wood waste to the center. Similar to the unit at the landfill, a locally manufactured King Coal boiler was installed, with a larger output of approximately 10 million Btu to heat the facility using hot water. When the center opened its doors in March 2010, it initially ran on natural gas. After a few months, all of the equipment was in place for the biomass system, and it was fired up. Geerdes takes care of anything mechanically related at the center, including the role of caretaker of the biomass boiler. When Geerdes was hired a few months prior to the grand opening, he was green to this green technology. &ldquo;I was there for all of the startups, and when we got ready to run the biomass I was about as green as you can get,&rdquo; Geerdes chuckled. &ldquo;I think it was a big eye-opener for King Coal, too, because they weren&rsquo;t used to doing systems that don&rsquo;t have a consistent fuel source that is screened&mdash;to go to whatever you are getting from the landfill, which could be seatbelts and whatever else the guys run through the grinder. It was a big learning curve for everyone.&rdquo; It took about a year to get the right combination of fuel to make the system run optimally. The system began fueling with dirtier wood waste from the landfill. &ldquo;After the first couple of years we got better&mdash;as we had better fuel, we had less problems,&rdquo; Klipfel says. &ldquo;We were babysitting it day and night, and that&rsquo;s when we finally just said that this is ridiculous, we have to change some stuff,&rdquo; Geerdes says. Those involved with running the boiler met with the landfill staff and discussed options with the wood waste. Now, the feedstock is composed of dried, large logs and wooden pallets. According to Geerdes, the landfill staff takes special care to ensure the wood chip pile is clean and on-spec, now that the demands of the biomass boiler are better understood. &ldquo;King Coal changed some equipment to handle what we&rsquo;re getting and meeting with the landfill helped everything,&rdquo; Geerdes added. Nuts and Bolts The pile of wood chips at the landfill is loaded onto a trailer that can hold about 4.5 tons of product. In a year, Geerdes says they make about 130 truckloads to and from the facility&mdash;a 45-minute round trip&mdash;which works out to be about four loads a week in the summer and four loads every other day in winter. Between 1,200 and 1,500 tons of wood waste are sourced from the landfill per year. The center has onsite fuel storage capacity of 40 tons, or about four or five days&rsquo; worth. During the winter, the boiler burns about 7 to 8 tons per day, and in the summer, about 1 ton per day. The system running at its max can burn 30 pounds per minute. Prior to combustion, feedstock is moved from the storage bin onto a vibrating table where it is sized down to 2 or 3 inches. A 25-pound magnet at the end collects all of the metal, such as nails from the pallets in the wood waste mix. Approximately 5 gallons of metal and nails are removed per day. Any oversized biomass and metal is recycled back to the landfill, and ash is augured into a dumpster and brought back to the landfill to use for cover. Prior to changing the mix of fuel, the biomass system was producing three to four times the amount of ash it does now, wearing the equipment down. Today, however, the system averages 3 to 5 percent in ash waste. The remaining ash&mdash;within EPA standards&ndash;&ndash;is removed from exhaust gasses before it goes out the stack. The boiler is made to burn the biomass as efficiently as possible, with the stoker temperature kept between 1,000 and 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. &ldquo;We have a couple fans, one blows underneath to stoke the fire and another blows around the top of the fire,&rdquo; Geerdes says. &ldquo;We burn everything&mdash;all of the combustible gases&mdash;so we get as much heat out of the wood as we possibly can.&rdquo; The fuel is raked a few times a day, depending on how much wood is burned. In the stoker box, Klipfel compares the movement of the fuel to a volcano. The fuel gets pushed up into the bin from the bottom like a volcano, although, not to that magnitude, he says. &ldquo;It gets pushed up slowly and as it burns, it spreads out,&rdquo; Klipfel says. &ldquo;You try to rake the material back to the middle to get it to burn hotter.&rdquo; The material is raked using equipment similar to a hoe. Raking is also done to get rid of what the staff refers to as clinkers&mdash;chunks of dirt and sand that have melted together&mdash;that sometimes form in the combustion process. The system runs year round, 24/7, unless down for maintenance. &ldquo;We can usually go six, seven months with nothing happening and then a bearing might go out or something like that, but usually if we can run all year long we will,&rdquo; Geerdes says. The system helps save dollars while utilizing a source of fuel that would have otherwise been wasted. &ldquo;We continue to see financial savings by using this system,&rdquo; Bina says. &ldquo;In addition to that, it&rsquo;s a way of reducing that waste at the landfill.&rdquo; Besides a workout, visitors can add a look at the biomass boiler to the reasons to come to the facility. Some even don&rsquo;t mind bypassing the swimming pool and consider the biomass heating system the main attraction. &ldquo;A lot of people will come up on tours and say let&rsquo;s get to the fun stuff,&rdquo; Geerdes says. &ldquo;Everyone thinks it&rsquo;s neat.&rdquo; Author: Katie Fletcher Associate Editor, Biomass Magazine kfletcher@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4920

Repurposing: About 4,000 tons of wood waste is at the Bismarck landfill site. The BSC Aquatic and Wellness Center uses 1,000 to 1,500 tons of a ground-down, 50/50 blend of dried logs and wooden pallets to heat its facility, pools and domestic water.

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Operations Superintendent Ryan Geerdes controls the biomass 
system using this touchscreen panel. Multiple safety measures are in place including an alarm system, mechanical air locks, dust removal system and fire suppression.

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Savings: The wood chips used in the BSC Aquatic and Wellness Centerâ€™s heating system cost about $50 per load, or about $13 per poundâ€”accounting for factors like labor and gas around $20 per pound. 

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The Daily Grind: A mixture of logs and pallets is ground to boiler specificationsâ€”under 3 inchesâ€”at the landfill and stored in a separate pile for pick up. The grinder was purchased with a city of Bismarck forestry grant.

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Wood waste is the heating fuel of choice at the Bismarck State College Aquatic and Wellness Center.

Diving into Wood Heat

A recent op-ed in the journal Nature starts out stating that &ldquo;[t]he bioeconomy is rising up the political agenda.&rdquo; While the piece discusses international policy issues, the U.S. political agenda is also increasingly bioeconomy-focused. A perfect example is a letter, signed by 154 members of the House of Representatives in August, urging federal agencies to recognize the carbon neutrality of biomass energy.&nbsp; While &ldquo;biomass use is expected to continue to rise to 2030 and imports to Europe are estimated to triple by 2020,&rdquo; a key point that authors of the Nature article make is: &ldquo;There is no consensus on what 'sustainable' means. Biomass assessment is a patchwork of voluntary standards and regulations. With many schemes comes a lack of comparability. Confusion leads to mistrust and protectionism, international disputes and barriers, slow investment and slower growth.&rdquo; The op-ed calls for an international body to resolve biomass-related disputes, or for a global biomass sustainability framework. Whether or not one supports these proposals, a lack of respected national and international standards for biomass production and utilization can only hamper the biomass industry&rsquo;s growth and standing. Motivated to change this, the Biomass Thermal Energy Council is currently drafting the first thermal efficiency test method designed for commercial-sized boilers, which use all kinds of solid biomass as a fuel stock, including pellets, chips, briquettes and cordwood. One motivation for this project was concern from industry and regulatory stakeholders about incentive legislation at both the state and the national level, such as the Biomass Thermal Utilization Act of 2015. The BTU Act is designed to incentivize high-efficiency biomass systems, and in order to capture the strengths of biomass systems, combined electrical and thermal efficiency are counted as a basis for credits. However, there is no standardized thermal efficiency measure for commercial-sized biomass systems to distinguish between high-efficiency, low-emissions equipment and less satisfactory performers. The project has gained substantial support from partners such as the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, the West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund, and the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources. BTEC will hold a series of regional scoping meetings to gather public feedback on the standard this fall and spring of 2016. A strength of the BTEC efficiency test procedure is its planned validation in a testing laboratory environment, after which it will be published as a voluntary industry standard and made publicly available through BTEC. The process won&rsquo;t stop there, however, as BTEC will then continue working to gain formal acceptance of the protocol by an ANSI-accredited standards organization. Furthermore, BTEC will promote the efficiency testing procedure outside the biomass industry to the wider HVAC industry, government officials and testing agencies, as well the general public. (The project&rsquo;s full overview and timeline are available on BTEC&rsquo;s website.) It will take time and lot of cat wrangling to harmonize the international &ldquo;patchwork of voluntary standards and regulations&rdquo; the biomass industry faces today. That said, creating a national American test method to show that biomass boilers perform like they should is a pretty good start. &nbsp; Author: Ben Bell-Walker Technical Affairs Director, Biomass Thermal Energy Council 202-596-3974 x 304 &nbsp;ben.bell-walker@biomassthermal.org

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A lack of respected national and international standards for biomass production and utilization can only hamper the biomass industry's growth and standing.

Nature's Call  for Biomass Standards

Some form of Croft Castle has occupied its present day site in Herefordshire, England, since the 11th century. It served as a dwelling for the Croft family, as recorded in the Domesday Book, an early census method completed under the direction of William the Conqueror in 1086. Now, nearly a thousand years later, Croft Castle is being recorded in the first chapters of the story of the transition of many of the United Kingdom&rsquo;s most treasured historic places to renewable energy.&nbsp; Croft Castle and over 300 other historic buildings similar in nature are owned, managed and cared for by a large charitable organization called the National Trust. Founded in 1895 as a reaction to the rapid pace of industrialization happening within the country, the National Trust was formed to preserve not only physical buildings, but wild places as well. The National Trust&rsquo;s mission goes far beyond simply preserving its roster of castles and historic properties, as it also works to preserve the buildings&rsquo; contents, and whenever possible, make them available for the public to visit and enjoy. The task isn&rsquo;t cheap, and it requires that the buildings have heat and power. In July, the National Trust announced it was committing &pound;30 million ($46 million) to an initiative that would replace fossil fuel energy inputs at its properties with renewable replacements, including biomass. The decision was made on the heels of a five-project pilot phase that included replacing a fuel oil boiler at Croft Castle with a biomass boiler. Ed Wood, a renewable project manager at the National Trust, tells Biomass Magazine that this initiative began to take shape around four years ago when the National Trust really started to understand the potential benefits of moving away from fossil fuels and using local, sustainable sources. &ldquo;Thinking about this led the trust to think more about renewable technologies,&rdquo; Wood says.&nbsp; Once it started considering renewables, Wood says the benefits and alignment with the National Trust&rsquo;s mission just kept piling up. Chief among the benefits the National Trust immediately embraced was the long- term sustainability offered by renewables. &ldquo;We hold many properties inalienably, which means that we can&rsquo;t sell them,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;So when you think about looking after these properties forever, being able to use a sustainable fuel source has got a massive advantage.&rdquo; &nbsp;The board at the National Trust had its eye on the potential economic impact of a widespread transition to renewables as well. &ldquo;Conservation work is hugely expensive,&rdquo; says Wood.&nbsp; &ldquo;In 2014 and 2015 the conservation cost was &pound;103 million.&rdquo; In the case of Croft Castle, the grounds of the estate are more than capable of satisfying the fuel requirements that the new boiler requires. &ldquo;The savings we generate we can put back into the conservation work,&rdquo; Wood says. As the National Trust is a charity and ultimately answers to its members, it is taking a stepwise approach to this renewable energy roll-out, and understandably so. Wood, remembering the organization&rsquo;s direction, says, &ldquo;The trustees had a look at what we were proposing, and they said, &lsquo;If you do a number of trial projects and show us that you can appropriately install modern renewable technology in the buildings and the sites that we have, and over five initial projects prove that it works in all the ways you&rsquo;ve talked about, then we&rsquo;ll give you more resources to do more renewable projects on a bigger scale. &ldquo;For Wood and the rest of the National Trust&rsquo;s renewables team, this certainly raised the stakes of getting the system at Croft Castle right. Challenging Deployment While Croft Castle illustrates the benefits of a transition to a biomass solution, it also highlights the incredible challenges of installing new energy systems at historic sites. With a commitment to preservation being central to the National Trust&rsquo;s mission, the urge to proceed with extreme caution with projects is understandable. &ldquo;We really have to consider if everything we do in terms of installation is really justifiable,&rdquo; Wood says. Still, climate control is a very necessary component of preserving buildings and the tapestries, carpets, furniture and artwork they contain. Without it, the varying temperatures and humidity would accelerate the deterioration the National Trust is working so hard prevent. This caution extends well beyond the walls of the project buildings. &ldquo;It also impacts the grounds,&rdquo; Wood says. &ldquo;In many instances, the grounds around a given building may very well have other archeological items in place. So again, we have to make sure we do everything by the book, and bring in archeologists to watch our digging and our trench work. And if we do find something, we have to change our route.&rdquo; With all of this in mind, the team at National Trust awarded the Croft Castle project to Euroheat, a leading biomass heating system installer in the United Kingdom. At the heart of the system Euroheat installed is an HDG Compact 200 wood chip boiler. The boiler is set up in a district heating configuration and delivers hot water to not only the castle, but also several different cottages on the estate, as well as the National Trust&rsquo;s offices. The system is capable of meeting about 75 percent of the properties heating demand, replacing an older, inefficient boiler that typically consumed over 5,000 gallons of fuel oil a year. The boiler will burn wood chips sourced from the woods immediately surrounding the castle. This contributes to the more active management of the surrounding woodlands and increases tree growth and overall biodiversity. Further highlighting how neatly the biomass boiler solution fits into Croft Castle, Wood notes that already in place there is a countryside team that looks after the woods on the estate. Early on, the project team decided that the grounds team already on site would be responsible for keeping the boiler fed with high dry, high-quality wood chips. &ldquo;The grounds team brings in a contractor to fell trees, and they stack that wood in round form and dry it for up to 18 months before chipping it,&rdquo; he adds.&nbsp; Wood emphasizes that delivering chips to the boiler at the right moisture content is imperative to maximizing its efficiency. In order to stockpile enough wood chips to maintain uninterrupted operation of the boiler throughout the heating season, a storage solution had to be devised. &ldquo;We made a very appropriate wood clad, timber-framed structure for the wood chip store,&rdquo; Wood says. Great attention was paid to not only the operational performance of this solution, but great care was taken to ensure that the new building blended in with the other buildings on the estate. &ldquo;We had to keep roof levels very low,&rdquo; says Wood. This challenging requirement paid off and yielded not only a solution that integrates visually with the site, but also offered some real gains in operational efficiency. &ldquo;The byproduct of that is that we ended up with a sliding roof on the chip store,&rdquo; Wood says. &ldquo;We can slide the roof back, pour the wood chips in, and really maximize the use of the space without having a very big space.&rdquo; The installation was complete and brought online in September 2014. In its first season of use, the boiler consumed about 100 tons of wood chips. Finally, it is a true closed system, as the grounds team utilizes the ash for a soil amendment on the estate&rsquo;s expansive gardens. More to Come The chip boiler deployment at Croft Castle is being viewed as a runaway success, and has put biomass heating in a good position to get a respectable share of the &pound;30 million tranche of funds the National Trust has committed moving forward. Wood and the renewables team are now moving on to the installation of two pellet boilers at a property in Warwickshire called Upton House. The grounds at Upton House are more compact than the grounds at Croft Castle, and make the deployment of a large boiler house and chip store impossible. As a result, the design team opted to deploy two pellet boilers supplied by ETA, each capable of producing 95 kW of heat. Two separate interior pellet bins will supply the boilers, which will heat Upton House, a restaurant, a cottage and an art gallery. The Upton system will be installed by Purple Energy and&nbsp; will consume approximately 75 tons of pellets each year and produce nearly 215,000 kWh of heat annually, satisfying nearly 50 percent of the site&rsquo;s total energy needs. The site was not without its own challenges, however. It was not built with automobiles in mind, to say nothing of larger pellet trucks, and Wood&rsquo;s team had to overcome a pellet resupply challenge before the project could be given the green light. &ldquo;Luckily, we found a supplier with a smaller pellet delivery vehicle that can get down our driveway,&rdquo; says Wood. Other projects are beginning to work their way into the biomass heating industry within the United Kingdom. Neil Harrison of re:heat reports that his team successfully responded to a tender, or request for a proposal, for a project in North Yorkshire called Nunnington Hall. &ldquo;In our years in the industry, we&rsquo;ve never completed a tender quite like this one,&rdquo; Harrison says. &ldquo;These guys are very serious in terms of how they view their property portfolio.&rdquo; The system Harrison&rsquo;s team designed has been configured to deliver lower temperatures at a constant rate. &ldquo;This system has been designed to deliver mainly conservation heat,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The system needs to provide enough heat, year-round, to preserve the fabric of the building and the contents of the building.&rdquo; Not having to deliver enough heat to keep the building warm enough for continuous habitation allowed Harrison&rsquo;s team to ratchet down their design. &ldquo;Even for a massive place like this, we&rsquo;re only putting in about 100 kW of pellet boiler capacity,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;You would expect something much bigger.&rdquo; Through this experience, re:heat learned what every contractor working on a National Trust property must understand: Appearance and conservation are key. &ldquo;Anything that alters the look of the building degrades it from a historical perspective,&rdquo; Harrison says. &ldquo;We couldn&rsquo;t just stick a shipping container with a pellet boiler outside the building. So we needed to make very sensitive modifications inside the building to achieve the proper design.&rdquo; With the success at Croft Castle and the other pilot projects, Wood and the renewables team earned a license from the National Trust&rsquo;s trustees to do more&mdash;&pound;30 million more. The share of that tranche that biomass will earn is yet to be determined, as projects are still working their way through a robust evaluation phase. These first monies can&rsquo;t possibly cover the needs of all the properties owned by the National Trust, but they can certainly serve as a broad proof of concept that renewables can meet energy needs, even in sites being actively preserved for their historical value. Moreover, with each successful project, the initiative cements its place in the National Trust&rsquo;s long-term vision. Providing good sustainable energy is also vital to looking after these properties forever,&rdquo; Wood adds. &ldquo;There is a kind a tradeoff to be had in trying to install these technologies for the benefit of the property while doing&nbsp; it in a way that is really sympathetic to the history of the site&mdash;it&rsquo;s&nbsp; good fun.&rdquo; Author: Tim Portz Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine 701-738-4969 tportz@bbiinternational.com

SUBTLE STORAGE: The chip storage solution at Croft Castle was designed to mimic the rooflines and low profile of the other buildings on the site. 
The requirement for low roof lines led to a unique solution that allows the roof to slide back so chips

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A STATELY SITE: The splendor of Croft Castle epitomizes the properties the National Trust owns and maintains. Any energy solution that detracts from the visual appeal of these properties simply cannot be considered.

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CASTLE COMFORT: An HDG Compact 200 wood chip boiler will supply nearly 75 percent of the Croft Castle propertyâ€™s heating needs, each year displacing over 5,000 gallons of fuel oil and consuming nearly 100 tons of wood chips, all while eliminating t

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The National Trust, a charity dedicated to preserving the United Kingdom's most priceless historic sites, is including biomass heat in its ambitious transition toward renewable energy.

Entrusted to Biomass

The United Kingdom biomass heat sector is experiencing turbulent times, thanks to a near-perfect storm of market factors, subsidy review and the fallout from dramatic growth in the industry since the introduction of the Renewable Heat Incentive in November 2011.&nbsp; The industry is now experiencing an equally dramatic slowdown, with significant numbers of redundancies and a marked drop in business confidence, despite biomass having barely scratched the surface of the U.K.&rsquo;s multibillion-pound annual heat market and our 2020 renewable heat targets still looking well out of reach. The impact that currently low global oil prices are having on biomass market growth will be well-understood by readers wherever they are on the planet, but when taken with the conditions prevailing in the domestic U.K. market, the biomass heat industry could well be facing an existential threat. Since its introduction, the RHI has helped the U.K. biomass heat industry deliver some 13,000 commercial and 10,000 domestic projects, and biomass boilers have far outstripped all the other technologies that have been eligible for support under this tariff-based scheme, with pellet systems dominating within the overall product mix.&nbsp; Whilst this is good news for a government with legally binding renewable energy targets to meet, the rapid deployment of biomass boilers has meant triggers to trim back the levels of support have been regularly exceeded, with permanent reductions in payment levels the result.&nbsp; In fact, the rate of deployment has been so great that the support available for &ldquo;small biomass&rdquo; schemes (less than 200 kilowatts, or 680,000 Btu) has dropped by 48 percent in the past nine months.&nbsp; Taken with the drops seen in heating oil and propane prices over the same period, the economic case to switch to biomass heating has been dramatically undermined. However, of most concern to the industry is the shift in U.K. policy, since the advent of a wholly conservative government in May 2015.&nbsp; We all know that current low oil prices will rebound close to previous levels in the short- or medium-term, which will help the competitiveness of biomass, but since securing a majority in the general election, the U.K. renewable energy industry has suffered shock after shock at the hands of a government, which increasingly appears opposed to the concept of generating energy from renewables. By any measure, a staggering array of negative steps has been taken in a very short time by the U.K. government, toward curbing the deployment of renewable energy technologies, often accompanied by rhetoric around &ldquo;reducing energy bills for hard working families and businesses.&rdquo;&nbsp; These steps range from proposing budget caps on support for anaerobic digestion and solar PV (meaning a reduction in support of as much as 87 percent for this particular technology), abandoning the decade-long plan to implement the Zero Carbon Homes policy in 2016, to taxing green electricity at the same level as that produced from fossil fuels and removing the guaranteed level of RO subsidy for biomass power stations. So what does this mean for wood pellet producers and the biomass heat industry?&nbsp; Well, there&rsquo;s been some good news from the biomass-to-electricity market over the summer, with Drax announcing its third coal-to-pellet boiler conversion will be completed imminently, but the general direction of travel observed in renewables policy has most realistic observers expressing serious concerns about the outlook for biomass heat. Only when the next government comprehensive spending review is unveiled at the end of November will the future of the industry become clear. But one thing is certain: Treating biomass heat the same way other renewable energy technologies with status and far-better established supply chains have been lately means the U.K. runs a serious risk of pushing this still-fledgling industry off a cliff, well before it&rsquo;s ready to spread its wings and take flight. Author: Neil Harrison Board Member, Wood Heat Association neil@reheat.uk.com 44 (0) 7917-632-171

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The United Kingdom biomass heat sector is experiencing turbulent times, due to a near-perfect storm of market factors, subsidy review and fallout from dramatic growth in the industry since the introduction of the Renewable Heat Incentive in November.

UK Biomass Heat: Ready for Takeoff?

CCurrently low oil prices might serve as a fuel-switching deterrent for the near-term, but those with roots in the wood pellet industry know this glut is only temporary and are continuing business as usual. Always-fluctuating oil prices will again soar, thinning wallets and depleting savings, and that&rsquo;s one of Maine Energy System&rsquo;s messages to home and business owners. Wood pellet fuel allows users to guard themselves against oil price volatility, and that&rsquo;s just one of the many benefits they offer. &ldquo;In the long-term, we [the industry] have the right answer,&rdquo; says Les Otten, president of MESys. &ldquo;But in the short term, we are small, and so we have to roll with the waves. Next time there&rsquo;s an insane oil price increase&mdash;and that could happen at any moment for any reason&mdash;there will be significant demands on our industry, and we need to be ready to meet them.&rdquo; That applies to those in all corners of the pellet industry, including design and innovation, which MESys is no stranger to. The company is the sole American distributor of Austrian wood pellet boiler system Okofen, which has been leading the pack of European system designers for nearly two decades and developed the full-automatic wood pellet boiler in 1997. Though the most recent cutting-edge Okofen product isn&rsquo;t yet available in the U.S., it is officially available in the Austrian market, after a series of lengthy but successful test installations. And not only will the Pellematic Smart_e guard against oil price volatility, but it allows a user to generate its own electricity, recent prices of which are flirting with historic highs in the Northeast U.S. Heat and Power at Home Miriam Gahleitner, Okofen product manager, explains that the Pellematic Smart_e combines the generation of heat and electricity in a very small space. &ldquo;The Stirling engine, as well as the condensing pellet burner technology, is incorporated in a 600-liter buffer storage,&rdquo; she says. Via the system, heat and electricity can be generated as it is needed directly at customer homes or at businesses, which Otten says can find a huge benefit if a there is a constant need for heat and electricity&mdash;for example, at a hospital, where it would cut some of the base costs. Electricity is generated through a Microgen Stirling engine, which is located inside the burner chamber of the Pellematic Smart_e, Gahleitner says. &ldquo;With the heat of the pellet burner&mdash;and only when the pellet burner is in operation&mdash;the Stirling engine is able to produce up to 1 kW of electrical power.&rdquo; The engine itself is filled with helium as a working gas, which is heated via a heater head, and then cooled down in a hermetically sealed, maintenance-free system. The heating and cooling of the gas causes a pressure wave inside the Stirling engine, which moves the pistons inside the engine and leads to the generation of alternating current, according to Gahleitner. Heat travels through the boiler to supply hot water for space heating, domestic use or for industrial and commercial process needs. In 2012, field testing of the cogeneration system began in Austria. &ldquo;The field test has been expanded step-by-step, and in several countries in Europe, pilot projects were realized,&rdquo; Gahleitner says. &ldquo;Up to now, more than 30 installations were made with the aim to gain experiences in praxis; 30 percent of all Pellematic Smart_e systems were installed as baseload boilers to get as many running hours as possible within a very short time frame.&rdquo; &nbsp;The rest of the cogeneration boilers were installed in single-family households to test future application. &ldquo;It was very important for us to gain as much experience as possible and optimize the whole system&mdash;for example, to increase the self-usage rate of the generated electrical yield,&rdquo; Gahleitner says. &ldquo;The more electricity that can be used direct at the customer&rsquo;s household, the higher the efficiency of the system is.&rdquo; All of the pilot installations were fully monitored, and onsite consumption rates of 70 to 90 percent were achieved, according to Gahleitner. The systems were adjusted occasionally and settings were changed at times to learn more about the effects and find optimization. After the first field test round in Austria, Okofen has installed additional test units in Austria, as well as France, Germanys the U.K., Italy, Netherlands and Belgium, with good results. &ldquo;Due to those good experiences, the Pellematic Smart_e is now officially available on the Austrian market,&rdquo; Gahleitner says. &ldquo;In other countries, the market entry should follow after training of service employees, and when field tests there are finished.&rdquo; The obvious benefit of the added electrical component is one has the ability to generate his own electricity at the right time and where it is needed, but Gahleitner highlights the fact that it is much&nbsp; more efficient, as the energy is mainly consumed where it is produced. That prevents losses caused by transportation&mdash;for example, from a large power plant, sending the power into the grid and to a customer&rsquo;s home. Tailored to meet the requirements of a single-family household, the system has a high on-site consumption rate of the generated electricity, due to its nominal thermal load of 9 kilowatts. &ldquo;This allows long running times in spring and autumn, and for the daily system yield to be maximized,&rdquo; Gahleitner says. &ldquo;On colder days, and at times of increased heat demand, the system switches to a higher output level, thereby allowing a baseload and a peakload boiler to be implemented for the first time in one unit.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As for bringing the technology to the U.S., MESys&rsquo;s B.J. Otten says he&rsquo;s not quite sure if the U.S. market is ready for the technology yet, but will be by the 2017 heat seasons. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re in a nice position, as our market is growing, to learn from the European market,&rdquo; he says. Les Otten says that MESys is ready to begin discussions for potential customers now to serve as the first adopters. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to identify half a dozen folks who would like to be the initial heart transplant recipients, and build from there.&rdquo; Otten reiterates the fact that the Pelletmatic Smart_e is the result of companies and minds from across the world coming together to yield extraordinary results. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re living more and more in a global economy, and this is a marvelous example of what that looks like. Author: Anna Simet Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine asimet@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4968

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LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD: The Microgen Stirling engine produces alternating current (50 Hz) and provides 1 kW of electrical power, ideal for use in domestic homes.

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Comprised of an American-made engine and boiler vessel, and an Austrian burner and pellet design, Okofen's compact Pellematic Smart_e marks the next evolution in wood pellet energy.

Packing a Punch

After years of regulatory uncertainty, in August the U.S. EPA took two actions that could have a big impact on the biomass industry. The Biomass Power Association is determining our next steps in advocating for the utmost benefits to the industry. To chart our course forward, we need the help of all biomass producers across the country: Please contact us to take our fuel survey and tell us about the types of biomass feedstocks used in your facility. The first action was the release of the final Clean Power Plan. To recap, the Clean Power Plan, which we covered extensively in last month&rsquo;s column, is, potentially, a very positive development for biomass facilities that came online on or after Jan. 1, 2013. (For older facilities, the plan holds little downside and, encouragingly, won&rsquo;t regulate biomass as a carbon-emitting energy source.) What remains to be seen is how facilities can become classified as &ldquo;qualified biomass.&rdquo; This will have a lot to do with which feedstocks states include in their plans, subject to the EPA&rsquo;s approval.. The agency is also accepting comments on its model federal plan, which will go into effect in states that don&rsquo;t submit their own plans. The second action was the latest report from the Scientific Advisory Board. The SAB is a paneled team of scientists tasked by EPA with determining how to account for emissions from all biogenic sources. The panel is weighing how to assign a biogenic accounting factor to every feedstock, fuel type, use and scenario that they can think of&mdash;a monumental task, to say the least. The outcome of the SAB is currently not connected to any legislation or regulation, but the lack of clarity in the Clean Power Plan on acceptable biomass feedstocks leaves open the possibility that the SAB findings could influence the EPA&rsquo;s decision in this area.&nbsp; Given these two interrelated regulatory actions, BPA wants to ensure that it has a good grasp on all materials that are currently in use for biomass energy across the country. To that end, we have developed a fuel survey&mdash;the first of its kind that we are aware of&mdash;to identify the types of feedstocks used in each state where biomass is an energy source. We plan to compile the results of this survey, state by state, to help inform us as EPA accepts comments on its proposed model federal plan, and as states begin developing their State Implementation Plans. We realize much of this information is sensitive and proprietary, and we will not release any company-specific information. &nbsp;These two regulatory actions, while not creating the absolute certainty we had hoped for, are beginning to indicate the role of biomass in what will amount to a new federal energy policy. We still have a lot of work ahead of us to make sure that all feedstocks currently used by biomass facilities are embraced by states and included in their SIPs. That is why we hope you will take our fuel survey, even if your company is not a member of Biomass Power Association, to help us better understand and advocate for the industry at this critical time. If you would like to take our fuel survey to provide us with data on your company&rsquo;s biomass power feedstocks, I encourage you to contact Carrie Annand, BPA&rsquo;s vice president of external affairs, at carrie@usabiomass.org, for more information. &nbsp; Author: Bob Cleaves President and CEO, Biomass Power Association www.biomasspowerassociation.com bob@biomasspowerassociation.com

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After years of regulatory uncertainty, in August the U.S. EPA took two actions that could have a big impact on the biomass industry

Advocate for Biomass via Fuel Survey

New Holland appoints North American vice president New Holland has appointed Bret Lieberman to lead the brand as vice president of North America. Bret joined New Holland in 1990 with a position in service parts. Most recently, he served as head of North America manufacturing, where he has been responsible for all agricultural and construction manufacturing plants since 2009. USDA names chief economist The USDA has appointed 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; UNICA joins Global Renewable Fuels Alliance UNICA, the Brazilian sugarcane industry association, has joined the Global Renewable Fuels Alliance. Created in 1997, UNICA is the largest organization in Brazil representing sugar, ethanol and bioelectricity producers. The association&rsquo;s members represent more than 50 percent of all the ethanol produced in Brazil and 60 percent of the country&rsquo;s sugar production. GRFA members now represent more than 90 percent of the global biofuels production from 45 countries. Roth joins Gevo board of directors&nbsp; Gevo Inc. has appointed Johannes Minho Roth to its board of directors. Roth is the founder and CEO of FiveT Capital Holding AG, a Zurich-based independent asset management firm that specializes in investment solutions for high net worth clients, family offices and institutional investors. He is also a member of the board of directors for Plug Power Inc. Ganesh Kishore, who joined the Gevo board in 2008, has resigned. Advanced Ethanol Council changes name, expands focus The Advanced Ethanol Council has expanded its scope and changed its name to the Advanced Biofuels Business Council. Founded in 2011 to represent advanced and cellulosic ethanol producers and technology providers, the rebranded organization has expanded its organizational charter to include other types of advanced biofuels. As part of the expansion, two existing members, Poet-DSM and Cellerate, a cellulosic biofuel joint venture between Quad County Corn Processors and Syngenta, will takes seats on the board of directors. New member company Aemetis will also join the board, while Sweetwater Energy will join the ABBC as a corporate member. Matria new senior vice president, chief financial officer of Joule Joule has announced the appointment of Peter Matrai as senior vice president and chief financial officer. He has nearly 20 years of experience in finance, global strategy, and corporate development, including a decade spent in the biofuels sector for BP. Matrai most recently served as chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Butamax Advanced Biofuels, a joint venture between BP and DuPont. He also previously led business development for BP Biofuels in North America. Advanced Biofuel Association elects officers The Advanced Biofuel Association has elected Wayne Simmons, president and CEO of Sundrop Fuels, as chairman; Neville Fernandes, president of Neste, as vice chairman; Wes Bolsen, head of business development and public affairs at Cool Planet, as treasurer; and Phil Caplan, partner at Ensyn Development Partners as secretary. In addition, the association appointed three new members to its executive committee, including Paul Woods, president and CEO of Algenol; Laurel Harmon, vice president of government relations at LanzaTech; and Rebecca Boudreaux, president of Oberon Fuels. Altaaqa appoints Ford chief commercial officer Altaaqa Global, a leading global provider of large-scale temporary power services, has appointed energy industry veteran Julian Ford as chief commercial officer. As the company&rsquo;s CCO, Ford&rsquo;s remit is to ensure that Altaaqa Global achieves revenue growth targets and overall commercial success, and to facilitate the formulation and implementation of innovative global commercial strategies. Ford&rsquo;s career in the industry started at the time when the concept of power plants on a rental basis was just gaining ground. He had a hand in introducing the concept of power project rental to governments of developing economies, which allowed them to hire power capacity to address short-term energy issues during times of hydropower shortage or other generation or transmission issues. Ford was instrumental in taking the rental power concept to different regions across the globe, including Middle East and Africa, South America, East Asia and South Asia. Butamax, Gevo settle patent dispute Gevo Inc. and Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLC, a joint venture between BP and DuPont, announced that they have entered into worldwide patent cross-license and settlement agreements, ending a patent dispute related to technologies for the production of biobased isobutanol. This settlement ends the lawsuits and creates a new relationship between the companies, aimed at leveraging each other's strengths and accelerating development of competitive supply for isobutanol. The cross-license agreement grants both parties patent licenses to all fields for isobutanol and is structured to develop robust and sustainable isobutanol markets. The license will be royalty bearing for Butamax in certain fields and royalty bearing for Gevo in other fields. There are also a number of fields that are royalty-free for both companies. Both parties can sell up to 30 MMgy, royalty-free, into any field.

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Business Briefs

Each year, during the production of the on-site and small-scale issue of Biomass Magazine, a theme we hadn&rsquo;t anticipated emerges. Last year, we were pleased when the issue&rsquo;s stories all honed in on the economic advantage that newly installed biomass-to-energy systems delivered to their owners. In the year between these issues, oil prices plummeted, however, straining the economics of even the most efficient biomass-to-energy installations. As a result, while interviewing sources for this month&rsquo;s stories, our team heard less about reduced energy bills and more about how well these systems fit into their host sites&rsquo; broader operational and strategic initiatives. For example, this year, we sent Associate Editor Katie Fletcher to Bismarck, North Dakota, to cover a story on the use of wood waste to provide the thermal load at the Bismarck State College Aquatic and Wellness Center. Randy Bina, executive director of the Bismarck Parks and Recreation District, told Fletcher that a feasibility study showed the system would deliver &ldquo;substantial savings,&rdquo; but these savings are overshadowed by the facility&rsquo;s use of challenging wood waste streams and the system&rsquo;s emergence as a living laboratory at the college. While writing &ldquo;Entrusted to Biomass&rdquo; on page 22, which is about the United Kingdom&rsquo;s National Trust, a charity dedicated to preserving historic buildings and sites, it was immediately clear to me that its &pound;40 million initiative to deploy renewable technologies across its property portfolio was not all about lower energy costs. Instead, the board recognizes that moving away from fossil fuels is inextricably linked to the National Trust&rsquo;s mission to &ldquo;preserve and protect historic places and spaces.&rdquo; The savings are simply the program&rsquo;s cherry on top, and will ultimately be channeled back to more conservation work. In &ldquo;Twofold Renewable in Tulare County&rdquo; on page 36, Keith Loria turns his attention to the role that an anaerobic digester plays in driving down the carbon intensity of the ethanol produced by its host site, Calgren Renewable Fuels. Lyle Schlyer, Calgren&rsquo;s president, told Loria, &ldquo;Liquid fuel is a mainstay of our transportation system. Using renewable biogas as process energy for the production of renewable fuel liquids sort of maximizes the whole concept.&rdquo; Finally, check out our exclusive quarterly installment of the Biomass Construction Update on page 10. It&rsquo;s a data-rich snapshot of the projects being built right now, collected through dozens of phone calls by our team in the past 90 days. It includes progress reports on 19 projects of all types, information not available anywhere else.
Author: Tim Portz Vice President of Content&nbsp; &amp; Executive Editor tportz@bbiinternational.com

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Each year, during the production of the on-site and small-scale issue of Biomass Magazine, a theme we hadn't anticipated emerges. 

October 2015

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

The Little Algae That Could

Maximizing Biogas Project Value

Nature's Call for Biomass Standards

UK Biomass Heat: Ready for Takeoff?

Advocate for Biomass via Fuel Survey

A Great Fit

Featured

Twofold Renewable in Tulare County

A Trending On-site Power Option

Diving into Wood Heat

Entrusted to Biomass

Departments

Packing a Punch

October 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

The Little Algae That Could

Maximizing Biogas Project Value

Nature's Call for Biomass Standards

UK Biomass Heat: Ready for Takeoff?

Advocate for Biomass via Fuel Survey

A Great Fit

Featured

Twofold Renewable in Tulare County

A Trending On-site Power Option

Diving into Wood Heat

Entrusted to Biomass

Departments

Packing a Punch

October 2015