After a period of relatively slow development, several combined heat and power (CHP) facilities are being added to Ontario’s power supply, through contracts with the Ontario Power Authority in 2013 and 2014. Aside from the latest announcements, the OPA’s most recent contract for CHP dates from 2010 (236.4 MW, in Thorold). Several more date from 2008 and 2009.
For example, the Thunder Bay Condensing Turbine Project is a biomass-fuelled cogeneration facility within the footprint of the existing pulp and paper mill owned and operated by Resolute FP Canada Inc. in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The plant has a total nameplate capacity of 62.4 MW, of which 40 MW is contracted to the OPA. Major equipment for the facility consists of two existing biomass boilers burning biomass fuel, such as bark, and supplemented by sludge produced at the paper mill, and one spent liquor recovery boiler to produce high pressure steam that is fed into a General Electric turbine and a Brown Boveri generator. There is also a standby natural gas fuelled boiler that may be operated during maintenance outages. The plant began commercial operation March 21, 2013.
On February 15 of this year the Becker Cogeneration Plant, another biomass fuel-fired cogeneration facility began operation. Located in Hornepayne, Ontario, the plant is fuelled by manufacturing waste from the adjacent lumber manufacturing facilities of Olav Haavaldsrud Timber Company Limited. The facility has a total nameplate capacity of 15.0 MW, of which 8.0 MW is contracted to the OPA. In addition to electricity production the plant provides steam to the mill for lumber drying and space heating purposes. Major equipment for the facility consists of an inclined grate-fired boiler burning biomass to produce high pressure steam that will be fed into a single extraction/condensing steam turbine generator.
The OPA lists two more in development, a 4MW unit at Rosa Flora Growers in Niagara, scheduled for December 16 of this year, and the 10.2 MW Hanlon Creek project in Guelph, which has no operation date specified.
Several other cogen facilities have been announced for 2014 and 2015 by power generation developer EPS AB Energy Canada Ltd.:
• Erie Meat Products, a meat processing and cold storage facility in Listowel, Ontario;
• Polycon, a Magna company in Guelph, Ontario, awarded a contract for three containerized CHP units with steam heat recovery, and total power output of 8 MW. Startup is planned for Spring 2015.
• A 2.8 MW biogas CHP plant owned by Bio-En in Elmira, Ontario.
• MFC Processing Partnership in Alberta awarded a contract for a 16.5 MW power plant, startup in spring 2015.
• An automated dispatching system was also added to a 12 MW greenhouse CHP operation dating from 2008, in order to determine whether the installation should run, not run or operate in part load, depending on the market price for power, cost of natural gas, and thermal and CO2 demands of the greenhouse.
EPS AB Energy’s projects utilize GE Jenbacher gas engines that range in size from 250 kW to 4.4 MW.
Meanwhile, Industrial Info Resources, in a July 14 release, reports that CHP is on the rise in the U.S. There, more than two-thirds of the nation’s planned or active spending is in Texas and Louisiana, where the group is tracking 477 CHP-related projects with a total investment value of more than $64 billion. This includes 273 projects with a value of more than $21.3 billion that are scheduled to begin construction within the next 12 months.
As for the UK, an infographic by EnerG shows CHP systems rated under 10 MWe jumped in numbers from 1,257 in 2008 to 1,860 in 2012, a 48% increase. Under 1 MWe, the numbers are up by 37% since 2010.
See also related stories: “Guelph’s Hanlon Creek gets community cogen,” and “Toyota adds cogen.”