Last fall the downtown university took delivery of two 100-kilowatt biomass boilers, to provide supplementary heating a steam plant now provides for its Ashdown, Manitoba and Lockhart Halls.

The system, which became commissioned and operational this spring, is also intended as a demonstration project, to give a nudge to others considering switching to a bioenergy source.

“We are going to be the first in Winnipeg to deploy a system such as this,” said Brandyn Berg, with controls, energy management and special projects at the university.

This project is being undertaken in a partnership with Manitoba Hydro’s Bioenergy Optimization Program that helps facilities wean off fossil fuel use, save energy costs and make sound environmental choices.

This will showcase how a biomass system can be used in the heart of a large urban centre, said the university’s executive director of facilities Kyle MacDonald.

“Essentially our goal here is to figure out if we can make this work in a dense urban environment where traditionally biomass wouldn’t be considered,” he said.

The addition of biomass will also help the university reduce its greenhouse gas emissions because biomass has no net GHG impact.

The university’s sustainability strategy includes a goal of five per cent of total campus energy usage coming from renewable sources by 2025 and they’re currently looking at all options including geothermal and solar, MacDonald said.

Adoption of the biomass for supplementary heating will get them halfway to that goal.

Ultimately, they expect a shift to using locally sourced renewable energy will eventually help cut utility bills too.

This is being done in recognition that the cost of hydro is only going up, said MacDonald.

“We use electricity for quite a bit of heat on our campus and that is no longer an economical choice, although it’s renewable,” he said.

“So we’re trying to see what the impact is for environmental purposes, and how it can help us to reduce emissions and potentially save on energy costs in the long term.”

They expect the system to use about 170 tonnes’ worth of pellets a year purchased within 100 km from the university, keeping the transportation footprint low. This link to rural Manitoba and helping to build the biomass market for the farming economy is a very important aspect, added MacDonald.

There has been much interest sparked both from a research perspective and the curious passerby.

It’s not every day you see a hopper bin, which stores the fuel pellets that feed the boiler system, in downtown Winnipeg.

“It kind of turns heads. It’s an eye-catcher and it gets people asking, “what’s that about?” said MacDonald.

You just don’t expect to see such a thing in downtown Winnipeg, he said.

“It’s an eye-catcher and it makes a statement,” he said. “We’re getting lots of interest from the public and other researchers. It gets people asking questions about what its use is.”

University of Winnipeg’s move towards adoption of biomass heating follows the example set by Providence College and Seminary at Otterburne.

When they were doing a large expansion on campus they were keen to explore all forms of alternative energy, said Bruce Duggan, associate professor of business management at the school.

They looked at all the costs and benefits, and ultimately installed both geothermal and biomass heating systems.

The latter was a cue taken from this province’s Hutterite colonies, said Duggan.

“We knew they’d been doing this for years,” he said. “The leaders in this right now are the Hutterite colonies.”

Currently, over 40 Hutterite colonies and about a half-dozen greenhouses utilize biomass to heat their facilities in Manitoba and there are numerous other examples of small “district loop” installations on farms.

Duggan is also president of Boke Consulting, a small company that helps communities pursue environmental projects that also nurture economic development and has been working with northern communities now making dramatic shifts towards alternative energy adoption.

The Northlands Denesuline First Nation, located on the shore of Lac Brochet will be one of the leading alternative-energy communities in Canada in 2020, he said.

There a project known as the Environmental Remediation And Alternative Energy Systems (ERAAES) is underway and making major progress towards weaning communities that have until now been entirely dependent on diesel for their power source.

Northlands is embracing all forms of renewable energy, having installed not only a 1.5-MW biomass district heating system, but 140 kW of lake-based geothermal heating and a 282-kW solar PV park of nearly 1,000 panels and by next year will be replacing about 300,000 litres of diesel or one-third of its power source with renewables. That’s also reducing their GHG emissions by about 18 per cent or 800 tonnes in the process, Duggan notes on his website.

“These are communities that understand local energy very well and are extremely frustrated with their current energy systems,” he said. “It has been just a matter of finding ways and funding for them to be able to do what they know what is the right thing to do.”

Duggan says he sees positive steps being taken throughout Manitoba towards adopting all forms of alternative energy, but we’re only at the beginning.

The farm community and the agribusiness community has been playing an important role in that, Duggan said.

“My overall take on this is that rural farms, businesses and individuals are at the forefront of adopting alternative energy in Manitoba,” he said.

“They think long term, and value self-reliance — both of which fit exactly with adopting renewable energy.”

Currently, Manitoba’s energy imports of gasoline, natural gas, propane and diesel total $4 billion — so there’s plenty of room for all renewables on the provincial landscape, speakers told this past spring’s annual meeting of the Manitoba Alternative Energy Association (MANSEA).

The post University pioneering urban biomass heating appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

From the science to the already-established industry and future opportunities, Manitoba could be a global leader in the world’s bioeconomy.

That is exactly why the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) has recently released the Manitoba Bioeconomy Atlas, to help Manitobans of all walks and stripes to understand and benefit from an easy-to-access web-based planning tool that drills down and helps map our province’s ample supply of biomass.

“There are over five million tonnes of available biomass produced in our province every year from agriculture, forestry residue, marginal lands and roadside ditches,” said Geoffrey Gunn, who led the project. “Some of this biomass is already being put to good use as livestock bedding and compost, but much of it is wasted and could be used as fuel.”

Biomass ranges from wood and crops to cattails and grasses, and they are a viable and abundant source of renewable energy in the province. They offer a whole host of environmental and economic benefits. Using biomass for energy in place of fossil fuels immediately reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

“An added benefit of harvesting non-traditional biomass such as cattails is the removal of nutrients such as phosphorus, which contribute to algal blooms,” said Gunn. “For example, if we were to remove 22 per cent of crop residue from agricultural fields and 25 per cent of harvestable cattail biomass, we could remove 2,000 to 5,000 tonnes of phosphorus from our landscape — a huge boon for the health of our lakes.”

Through the work and research of IISD experts such as Dr. Richard Grosshans at locations across the province, the organization has studied the ubiquitous cattail plant for nutrient removal and as an energy source that can be mixed with wood to create pellets that heat buildings and barns.

Where there are cattail plants, there tends to be water nearby. The water, at some time, is moving as part of the watershed and the cattails absorb toxic or problem-causing chemicals flowing by.

By definition, biomass includes the earth’s living matter, plants and animals, and the remains of this living matter. Plants store the sun’s energy, providing a simple, renewable energy source. Better yet, the carbon in plants is captured from the atmosphere which reduces our carbon footprint. Unlike coal, which takes millions of years to form, biomass can be grown and replenished like a crop, once or twice in a season.

According to Gunn, the bioeconomy is the segment of the provincial economy that uses renewable products and services from our natural environment. Advances in biofuels, biochemistry and materials science have shown that we can use waste products from agriculture or forestry to supply new industries. These supplies are spread across the Manitoba landscape.

The Manitoba Bioeconomy Atlas presents logistical and economic analysis of the sources that could supply large processing operations in the biofuel, biochemical or biomaterial industries and attract high-tech investment to Manitoba. Gunn says that he has done presentations to key stakeholders and decision makers with the Bioeconomy Atlas to inform people about Manitoba’s large biomass resources, particularly crop residues, marsh plants (such as cattail), and unused limbs and bark from the provincial logging industry. But he also says the atlas has a vital mainstream role to play and he wants to get it into the hands of producers and is brainstorming the best way to do that. Workshops, seminars and webinars are all in the works.

“The Manitoba Bioeconomy Atlas is an online tool, which means it is fully accessible free of charge for the public right now,” said Gunn. “I think we really need to connect with producers at the grassroots level to ensure they understand how this tool can help them benefit with planning and future decisions that they may be faced with around their biomass resources.”

Gunn admits that things in Manitoba are not quite at the stage where producers and land managers can load trucks with biomass and take them off to market as they do with a commodity crop or livestock. The limitations are twofold: 1) limited infrastructure and the few processing facilities that are unable to meet demand for 50,000 tonnes of biomass annually; and 2) minimal mechanisms to link producers to suppliers, and suppliers to consumers.

“Manitoba has tremendous potential to incorporate bioenergy in its growing renewable energy portfolio, as Canada strives to lower greenhouse gas emissions. There’s a big opportunity to reduce energy costs, particularly for rural businesses,” said Gunn. “We want to help people make the right decision for their own situation. Thanks to Growing Forward 2 funding and support from the provincial biomass community, we’ve developed a really powerful, exciting tool to help biomass work for Manitobans and grow a healthy and sustainable economy.”

To access the atlas, and to learn more, visit iisd.org/bioeconomy-atlas.

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Israeli researchers have developed a way to mimic coal formation by heating wet chicken waste, potentially providing an alternative energy source to that fossil fuel and find a use for growing amounts of waste from poultry.

– Amy Pollock reports for Reuters.

The post [VIDEO] Chicken poo power as an alternative to coal? appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Optimist Holsteins Ltd. near Otterburne is in final stages of setting up a newly installed 175-kilowatt, solar photovoltaic (PV) system. When operational it will begin producing enough power to meet all the farm’s electrical needs while earning credits to offset the farm’s hydro bills when they do have to dip into the grid.

The newly installed 540 ground-mounted, solar panels line about an acre of farmland. It puts an end to their yearly $25,000 hydro bill, says Hans Gorter who owns and operates the farm with his wife Nelleke, son Albert and his partner Chelsea Enns.

“Putting solar on the farm means I’ve prepaid my hydro bill for the next 25 years,” said Gorter.

The farm’s own investment in the system was about $250,000 with another $175,000 in rebate from Manitoba Hydro helping cover the total cost of $400,000.

Their farm’s energy requirements made it a very good fit for rebates through Manitoba Hydro’s Power Smart Solar Energy Program of $1,000 per kilowatt up to a maximum of $200,000.

“We just fell into that category where we could maximize the incentive,” said Gorter.

Hydro’s rebate was the final push they needed to go solar, he continued. Originally from the Netherlands, their family came to Canada in 1987. They’ve kept in touch with friends in Europe who regularly talk about their own switch to solar energy systems, Gorter said, but so long as hydro rates remained low in Manitoba there never was much incentive to switch themselves.

Then they met representatives of Sycamore Energy Inc.’s Solar Manitoba who had a booth at Ag Days in Brandon.

“They were telling us about Manitoba Hydro doing the rebate. I got interested. We did the numbers and we started to see that it was time to move on this,” said Gorter.

Justin Phillips, the company’s president said their firm’s main focus is on farms and agricultural businesses.

“We have over 100 farms that we’re working with to install solar across the province,” he said. That’s still a small fraction of the total farms but they anticipate a big uptake this fall after harvest.

“Ultimately, this is the only piece of equipment that a farmer’s going to buy that doesn’t break down and makes money,” he said.

Many farmers are eyeing solar power as a hedge against future electricity prices.

“They see the opportunity to help eliminate the need to be dependent on hydro and offset their hydro needs with solar,” said Phillips.

“They’re locking in their electricity rates themselves by using solar rather than succumbing to the inflation rates of Manitoba Hydro in the years to come.”

Manitoba Hydro’s offer of its substantial rebates plus the prospect of rising hydro rates ahead are the main drivers.

Manitoba Hydro is asking the Public Utilities Board for a 7.9 per cent rate hike each year for the next four years.

The PUB approved an interim increase of 3.36 per cent, with a ruling on the original hike application to come later this year.

Phillips said Manitoba is very well suited for solar energy systems due to the intensity of solar radiation here. The majority of solar energy — 85 per cent — is produced during the spring, summer and fall months, then drops down through winter when the sun is lower and the days are shorter. The surplus energy produced in the warm months on the farm is fed back into Hydro’s grid.

“In the summer months Hans will be turning his meter backwards, for lack of a better way of describing it, or feeding back into the grid, creating a credit on his account, ” said Phillips.

Gorter said he’s had many calls and inquiries from those interested to see the installation and he’s pleased to showcase a dairy farm trying to reduce its environmental footprint.

“I hope the farm community looks at this as I do,” he said. “We are in food production. We have to reduce our footprint and we have to make it sustainable for the next generation.”

Hydro has received applications for other even larger solar installations but to date Optimist Holsteins remains the largest, Hydro officials said last week.

To date 460 applications have been received, 408 approved, and 103 installations completed for a total of $1.26 million paid out in rebates.

The two-year pilot program is scheduled to end in May 2018, with no discussions having yet been held regarding continuing or expanding it further.

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“Around here we don’t have any wells or anything, so the cows just drink out of the sloughs and when they dry back a bit they tend to be three feet of mud for 20 or 30 feet before you get to water,” he said. “In fact, we did lose one (animal) actually one time — it gets bogged down and can’t get out.”

• Read more: Beyond the dugout: The making of a watering system

Looking for solutions, Northam eventually turned to the Little Saskatchewan River Conservation District and its solar-powered remote waterer, on offer for farmers to demo. Northam was impressed with the results. The piping bypassed the muck that animals would have ordinarily had to wade through, instead bringing water within easy reach of the herd.

The difference was large enough that Northam started designing his own system soon after the demo ended.

Today, Northam’s mobile system services 60 cow-calf pairs and between 55-60 yearlings at a time and is the hub of his mob grazing system. Paddocks are spread in a pie shape around the trough with the single drinking site accessible to all paddocks. The herd will rotate through the whole “pie” before the system must be moved.

“We’ve been rotational grazing for quite a while, but we started with this adaptive, high-density grazing,” Northam said, referencing a grazing style with a large number of animals grazing a small area before moving quickly to a new area, allowing the land to recover. “We try and set the water up so that we can just fan out and we move the cows every day, but we hopefully only move the water about once a week.”

That timeline might change, depending on the frequency of herd movements, he added. The herd is normally moved once a day, but Northam says he switched the schedule to twice-daily moves during some periods this season. Most recently, the producer went through eight paddocks in a week.

“We’ve just sort of placed (the waterer) strategically,” he said. “You sacrifice a small area around where they come back to all the time, but it’s very slick to move. One person could probably pick it up and be out of there in 20 minutes to half an hour.”

Reliable?

Northam has been overwhelmingly happy with his system, despite some experts, including Manitoba Agriculture livestock specialist Ray Bittner, identifying reliability issues with solar-powered waterers.

Duane Kent, who lives northeast of Calgary, agreed that reliability was a concern, but the Alberta producer has little option but to go solar.

Kent is over 500 kilometres away from his pasture near Biggar, Sask., a four-quarter area with no natural surface water that Kent estimates would take at least $30,000 to run power to.

The well and piping were already in place when he bought the land, Kent said, but noted that the previous owners were at the mercy of their water pump, which only kicked in when trough levels were low and meant that water ran out quickly in the case of a problem.

He has since added 3,000 gallons of storage on site, enough for a one-day grace period should he need to make the drive.

“It’s been fairly reliable,” he said. “You’ve got to realize it’s not a walk-away system. You do have to pay attention to it, but at the cost, we couldn’t even begin to run power there.”

Today, Kent runs 100 cow-calf pairs on a two-paddock rotational grazing system, both accessible to the stationary watering system.

The phrase “remote” watering takes new meaning on Kent’s farm. Faced with the need to keep watch over the system and the reality of distance, the producer outfitted his pasture with cameras and synced water system controls to his smartphone.

“One issue that we ran into is if we get too much solar, the pump doesn’t like too high of voltage and it would lock up, so it was just a matter of flipping a switch on and off, which — a five-hour drive to take 10 seconds to flip the switch on and off is not a lot of fun,” he said. “Now, this season, we’ve added a control system that has relays I can control over the internet.”

Solar panels have also seen an upgrade this year. The system previously ran off 12 panels producing 750 watts at a given time. Improved solar technology has allowed Kent to improve those numbers. His system now boasts four panels and produces 1,000 watts.

The change will help deal with those hot but cloudy days when demand for water is high, but solar energy is low, he said.

A battery backup was also added this year and is able to run the system for two days without sunlight.

“The nice thing about the well is we’re not worried about water quality,” Kent said. “This year was bad. There were a lot of dry areas and salt in the water in the dugouts and that became pretty bad.”

Over 200 cattle died in southern Saskatchewan this July due to water quality.

The post Watering cattle with solar power appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The Winnipeg-based businessman helped pioneer the solar industry in Manitoba and has watched Manitoba Hydro kick-start the industry to unexpected heights via a farmer-friendly pilot program that has one year left on it.

That fact, he says, should be more than enough motivation for those on the fence about solar power to take a hard look at a solar panel installation on their farm operations.

“A solar panel installation is the only piece of equipment that a farmer will buy that won’t break down as it makes them money,” says Phillips. “And the farmers love that.”

Phillips is president and founding partner of Sycamore Energy Inc., and most recently Solar Manitoba, a solar and renewable energy developer. Phillips launched his first sustainable business in 2008 and the award-winning entrepreneur is a champion for alternative sources of energy in Manitoba. Among the many hats he wears on several community and business boards, Phillips is also a director for the Manitoba Sustainable Energy Association (ManSEA). He applauds Manitoba Hydro’s 2016 Power Smart Solar Energy Program that offers incentives and financial support to adopt solar power and allow consumers to generate their own electricity as Canada’s best rebate. Especially, he says, for farmers and producers.

“Farmers and producers use huge amounts of electricity for their operations,” says Phillips. “So, in essence, when they install a solar panel they are hedging their bets against future Manitoba Hydro electricity price increases. A solar panel lasts for 30 years and for their homes and operations over that period, producers are locking in at a set rate today as opposed to continuing to pay higher rates for electricity in the years to come.”

Phillips says the win for Manitoba Hydro via the pilot program is that it frees up electricity previously earmarked for in-province customers and puts it back on grid for the export market. He said the pilot program has been a success. Wayne Digby, Phillips’s colleague on the ManSEA board concurs.

“With the Manitoba Hydro incentive program this sector has seen a huge increase over the past year with many agricultural producers considering solar,” says Digby.

Areas of Manitoba can see more than 2,300 hours of sunshine annually. But, even the sunniest facts can come with clouds. Phillips says he has heard it all when it comes to reasons to not install solar panels, with concerns around hail and snow damage being the most common.

“These panels are new to Manitoba but they are commonly used in California, Germany and Norway among other places. They are tried, tested and true,” says Phillips. “In the winter, most of the time the residual heat off the panel is enough to melt any accumulation of snow.”

With the climate right and the incentive program in place, Phillips says the only thing remaining for producers is to protect their own interests.

“Choose a reputable company for your installation,” says Phillips. “Solar is an investment, not a product purchase.”

Solar tech improving

Most Manitoba farm operations will be looking to install solar photovoltaic (PV) cells for their operations. According to Manitoba Hydro’s website PV cells are made of semiconductor materials and designed to convert sunlight into electricity through the photoelectric effect.

When photons (packets of light energy) strike solar cells, a reaction releases electrons that produce voltage to drive an electric current. There are many things that use PV for power, such as garden lighting systems, calculators, and remote, off-grid electricity sources designed to power farms and cottages.

But as PV costs have continued to come down, the technology has become more attractive for wide-scale use in Manitoba.

Solar PV can now be used to run homes and businesses, and depending on the installation size, provide electrical power to the grid.

Reference:

• Manitoba Hydro helps homeowners harness the sun (Manitoba Hydro website)
• Environment (Manitoba Hydro website)

The post Manitoba sunshine brightens solar power opportunities appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“With the provincial ban on the use of coal for space heating in Manitoba, a good number of Manitoba’s Hutterite colonies have recently upgraded or converted their heating systems from aging coal-burning systems to cleaner biomass boiler heating systems,” says Richard Grosshans, bioeconomy lead for International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)’s water program.

According to Grosshans, some of these biomass systems require processed biomass, such as commercially available fuel pellets. These fuel pellets are stored in a silo and are slowly fed into the building’s boiler system as needed.

Several Manitoba colonies have installed large-scale biomass boiler systems with an adjoining fuel storage building equipped with a “walking floor-type” biomass feed system allowing them to use a variety of bulk biomass fuel such as wood chips, sawdust, shredded cattail and grass, shredded pallets and even demolition waste.

With a hydraulically operated walking floor system the biomass feedstocks (wood chips, sawdust, shredded cattail and grasses) are piled onto the conveyer system and the material is slowly moved or metered into a system of augers that moves the biomass into the boiler system as needed.

• Read more: Renewable energy gaining traction in Manitoba

“Biomass boiler systems are efficient and clean burning and are required to install proper filter systems to prevent particulates and ash to meet provincial emissions standards,” says Grosshans. “These systems are highly automated and for the technology savvy, they can even be operated and monitored via a smartphone application.”

A quick scan around Manitoba indicates there are a variety of biomass boiler systems, feed systems, and fuel sources in use at the province’s many Hutterite colonies. Larger boiler systems with walking floor feed systems can utilize a greater variety of fuel sources, while smaller systems typically need higher-quality wood material.

In the case of some colonies, there is an existing wood manufacturing facility on the colony or nearby the colony, so there is an abundant supply of premium high-quality kiln-dried wood waste and sawdust that is available.

Success brings increased interest from others, and in response to the need for processed fuel pellets, Grosshans says IISD has been collaborating with Greenwald Colony, Biovalco, and the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) on the BRG Manufacturing fuel pellet facility near Stead, Manitoba.

The IISD has a particular interest in promoting the system’s ability to use the province’s ample and reharvestable supply of cattails for the betterment of Manitoba’s waterways, especially the health of Lake Winnipeg. Via naturally occurring or human-applied source points, agricultural lands are one of many source points that contribute phosphorus to Lake Winnipeg algae blooms.

Cattails prefer to grow on the fringes of waterways as well as ditches that water passes through and these plants are known to absorb phosphorus from the waters around them and store phosphorus in their roots and stalk. The cattail harvest takes the phosphorus out of the watershed system the plants grow and thrive in and into the biomass pellet process for heating. After the pellets are burned, there is still an ability to recycle the phosphorus from the ashes. Meanwhile, the harvested cattail plant regrows from its roots.

“IISD and Biovalco worked with the BRG Manufacturing fuel pellet facility to switch to using wood waste from manufacturing for the production of high-quality fuel pellets,” says Grosshans. “They also developed a premium cattail-wood-grass blended fuel pellet with excellent burn characteristics that can be used in various boiler heating systems.”

To date, the BRG Manufacturing fuel pellet facility has produced over 6,000 tonnes of fuel pellets to generate over 12,000 tonnes of CO2e of offsets through coal replacement fuel switching.

“During the winters of 2015-16 and 2016-17 fuel pellets were used for space heating in larger-scale boiler facilities on several Manitoba Hutterite colonies and at Providence University College, as well as in residential pellet stoves at the Living Prairie Museum and on several farm buildings,” says Grosshans. “Initial results and analysis indicate these pellets produced by the manufacturing plant are a premium fuel blend with excellent burn characteristics, low ash (three per cent), and high-heat energy (19.8 GJ/T).”

During the winter of 2016-17, IISD worked with PAMI, Greenwald Hutterite Colony, and Miami Hutterite Colony to use coarsely shredded cattail bales mixed with shredded wood waste in walking floor-fed biomass systems on the two colonies. This important proof of concept demonstrated using coarsely shredded bales is much more efficient and cost effective than producing processed fuel pellets from baled material such as cattail and grasses.

“As the colonies have made the decision to switch to biomass heating, we have identified many direct added benefits,” says Grosshans. “We are hearing that biomass systems are much more efficient with consistent drier heat and require much-less hourly and day-to-day monitoring of the system. In addition, the lower cost of biomass heating compared to coal allows for better heating and therefore improved ventilation in barn buildings, improving the air quality and health conditions of livestock. ”

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Providence University Col­lege in Otterburn has been burning biomass since 2011 and in January of this year it used the first of the pellets made from a combination of wood and cattails, in partnership with the International Institute for Sustainable Develop­ment (IISD).

Richard Grosshans, a senior research scientist with IISD, said the move proves the pellets are a viable heating alternative, something that is significant to those who want to preserve wetlands for their many environmental services.

“We always believed that one way to keep wetlands on the landscape would be to prove their economic values alongside the environmental values that they provide to society,” Grosshans said. “Through our partnership with Providence University College, we have proven that the system can work in the depths of a Manitoba winter with a product supply that can match demand.”

IISD’s innovative approach harvests cattails and other plants from marginal agricultural land, water retention sites, and drainage ditches to remove nutrients and contaminants absorbed by the plants, and then uses plant biomass to produce low carbon energy to replace fossil fuels. With the elimination on the use of coal for space heating in Manitoba, there is an accelerating strong demand for quality processed biomass fuel. Manitoba’s Hut­terite communities are leading this charge.

“With coal no longer an option, several colonies are producing compressed biomass — including cattails — as fuel for their own heating demands,” said Grosshans.

The trial is part of Provi­dence’s ongoing commitment to using environmentally friendly biomass, something it’s been doing since 2011, according to college spokesperson Jarrad Peters, who said the first cattail pellets were used in January.

“They burned exceptionally, and we were extremely pleased with the product,” said Peters.

Grosshans said these type of approaches can be applied globally, in places with far greater issues than North America.

“Innovative solutions devel­oped here in Manitoba to collectively deal with our flooding, nutrient, and carbon reduction issues that also create economic growth and jobs will help us and the global community,” he said.

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Elton Energy Co-op is moving on to the next phase in its quest to develop local alternative energy.

A MET tower, erected to gauge the wind resource near Forrest, was taken down recently after gathering two years of wind data, said Dan Mazier, president of the co-op.

Now we know what type of wind regime we have and how much power we re going to be producing, said Mazier. Now we can attract developers.

The next step will see Elton Energy seeking proposals from a number of wind energy companies in order to find out how much it will cost to build two wind turbines able to generate up to three megawatts of electricity.

Once the best deal is determined, the co-op will approach Manitoba Hydro with a proposal to link their locally owned power generation up to the provincial grid.

The goal is to provide a return on investment of 12 per cent per year. Five per cent will go the rural municipality of Elton, and seven per cent to individual investors, who will buy shares at $1,000 each.

Mazier said that the industry standard for returns on wind power projects is roughly 15 per cent, which in the current investment market of rock-bottom low deposit rates and dismal stock market returns, is very attractive.

The Elton Energy, a for-profit co-op business model, is also aimed at local economic development, he added. Not only do you get the jobs and the money out of it, you can decide what you want to do with that extra money, he said.

Mazier describes the potential for alternative energy as one way to stem economic leakage that is draining the lifeblood of rural communities.

Currently, every year, Manitoba spends some $3 billion on imports of fossil fuel-based energy from other provinces, or $2,200 per person.

Just think, if we cut that by 10 to 20 per cent, or we started bringing back $500 per person in a municipality, what would that look like?

Experience in other regions shows that alternative energy projects bring back three times as much to local communities if they are locally owned, he added.

It s our resource. It s going over our land. How about we capitalize on this resource, said Mazier.

Once its turbines are up and running, future plans for the co-op include working together with other communities to create a community power investment model, he said.

daniel.winters@fbcpublishing.com

———

Just think, if we cut that by 10 to 20 per cent, or we started bringing back $500 per person in a municipality, what would that look like?

DAN MAZIER

The post Elton Energy A Step Closer To Cashing In On Wind appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

But thanks to a frenetic expansion of production capacity by manufacturers in recent years, the price of solar-powered systems has come down, especially for photovoltaic panels.

Much of this was due to subsidies in European countries, breakneck expansion in China, and investor interest in the booming alternative energy sector worldwide. But now that the global economy has slowed down dramatically, a glut of polysilicon has led to lower prices.

“Solar has come down,” said Carl Driedger, operator of Sundog Solar, in a presentation on remote off-site watering systems during the recent Provincial Grazing Tour.

Large panels rated for 175 watts are now selling for about $900, or just over $5 per watt, down from about $10 a few years ago.

The devices for converting sunlight into electricity are also becoming more efficient, and power output per square foot has increased as the technology improves. More juice from less surface area means installations can be much smaller while still producing the same amount of electricity.

For ranchers, that means charging the batteries for electric fences and operating remote, off-grid watering systems with solar panels is becoming a more viable option.

For example, a water wagon can be parked near a water source such as a dugout, slough or creek, to keep the cattle from polluting the water and trampling the stream bank. A 175- watt panel linked to two deep-cycle batteries hooked up to provide 24 volts can run a float-switch- equipped DC sump pump capable of watering 250 head of cattle during the long days of summer, he said.

“In winter, you can cut that in half because you have to allow for less sunlight,” said Driedger.

Any battery hooked to a panel larger than 30 watts needs a regulator to prevent overcharging in bright sunlight, he added.

The latest charge controllers have a digital display that shows the voltage and amperage going in to the batteries from the panels and the amount of DC current being used. The better models feature a pulse-charging mode that kicks in at full charge and extends battery life by knocking sulphates off the battery plates.

Batteries should always be maintained as close to fully charged as possible. For a 12-volt system, that’s 12.7 volts or higher, and 25 volts or more for a 24-volt system.

“With a digital readout, you can tell that you’re there,” said Driedger. “Then your batteries will last longer. Leave the tank ‘full of gas’ and your batteries will last years.”

At Driedger’s own farm, the batteries in his watering system that runs summer and winter have lasted eight years, he added. Batteries don’t die; they are generally killed by farmers not using enough solar panels to keep them happy – never dipping below 90 per cent of peak charge. Fencers, he added, typically need 10 watts for every joule.

“Being a solar guy, I don’t want to sell a lot of batteries. That makes me look bad. I want the systems to be up and running and working good.”

Besides preventing foot rot and protecting riparian areas and water quality, off-site watering systems can also help extend water supplies, he said.

Driedger, who fences off seasonal sloughs with a single wire and then hooks up a portable watering system for his cows, is able to get every last gallon available. When it starts getting low, he wades in and uses a garden rake to clear weeds around the intake and makes a shallow hole so it can stay low enough to keep pumping water as it dries up.

“In a dry year, these systems can really help you out,” he said. “If your cows are walking the slough’s edge and punching it out, there’s more sunlight that can get in and that slough will dry up way faster.” daniel.winters@fbcpublishing.com

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