Resource World Magazine

56 www.resourceworld.com j u n e / j u l y 2 0 1 5 alTERNaTivE e n e r G y The north-central British Columbia town of Fort St. James, one of BC's earliest European settlements and a historically important fur trading post, is the site of a new biomass power plant that will gen- erate enough electricity to power some 40,000 homes. Patrick Freer, Owner's Representative for Fengate Capital Management Ltd., told Resource World that the Fort St. James Green Energy Project, well along in construction, is being built through the Fort St. James Green Energy Limited Partnership, a limited partnership between Fengate Capital and Dalkia Canada Inc. Dalkia and Fengate Capital arranged a $175 million debt financing, from several inter- national banks, to support building the facility. Dalkia and Fengate Capital have con- tracted the Spanish company, Iberdrola Energy Projects Canada Corporation, world experts at building green energy projects, to construct the plant. Capital costs have been estimated at $235 million with $175 million of that for the engi- neering and construction and the rest for general and administrative costs. Freer said discussions are underway to determine how many local forestry partners will be contributing wood from pine beetle affected areas. "Our operating period is currently based on 30 years, with the hope to extend long after that," he said. The new facility will partially solve a major problem – what to do with millions of trees killed by the pine beetle infesta- tion. The pine beetle has killed more than 16 million of the 55 million hectares of for- ests in British Columbia "Including sub-contractors, in total, there can be over 300 people working on the site depending on the stage of con- struction," said Freer. "The concrete work is just about completed at the present time with only a few foundations outstanding," he said. In total, the new biomass facility will consume some 307,000 tonnes of wood biomass annually with Dalkia manag- ing the biomass supply by working with forestry companies, sawmills and First Nations. When in operation, the biomass plant will generate electricity that will be sold to the BC Hydro & Power Authority and will result in avoiding the discharge of approximately 95,000 tonnes of CO 2 – the equivalent of taking over 45,000 cars off the road. First Nation contractor, The Taba Group, has been involved since the ground-breaking in November 2013 and has performed the site's earth-working duties. Freer said Taba has become a valuable partner to the design-build con- tractor, Iberdrola, and has seen their initial scope of work increase to now include installation of slope stabilization materi- als and temporary access roads around the site. The Fort St. James facility will be con- necting to a private transmission line and then go through the compatibility process with BC Hydro in order to connect to the BC Hydro grid. "Once BC Hydro approves the compatibility, we will be connected to their grid," said Freer. The project is now about half com- pleted according to Emily Colombo, both Deputy Corporate Officer and Economic Development Officer for Fort St. James. "We have been told that once online the plant will directly employ 23 operational workers plus other workers for spin-off employment such as trucking and hauling fiber to feed the facility," said Colombo. "The wood waste to be fed to the plant will come from the Fort St. James Forest District – some as sawdust from sawmills, some as wood waste from pine-beetle affected trees." Freer said the plant is scheduled for start-up on July 1, 2016. n Fort St. James Green Energy Project. Photo courtesy Fort St. James Green Energy Limited Partnership. Fort St. James Green energy project on schedule by Ellsworth Dickson

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