So what’s the deal-i-o with biomass? Biomass is organic material made from plants and animals. It contains stored energy from the sun. Plants absorb the sun’s energy through photosynthesis and this in turn gets passed on to animals and people that eat them. Biomass is a renewable energy source and when burned the chemical energy is released as heat. Some examples of biomass fuels are wood, crops, manure and some garbage.

Enter John Egenwolf, owner of Green Biomass Energy Solutions. This forward-thinking company focuses on the development and distribution of biomass gasification technology for heating and power generation. John was inspired by his local surroundings - an abundance of unused and inefficient processed woody biomass that ultimately ends up in big annual slash-pile burnings. Why not use this for something … well, greener!

John and his team have installed a commercial Biomass Power Generation facility at their location in Smithers with a target of approx. 70,000 KWh per year and plans to feed the grid in 2010 / 2011. This type of decentralized facility boasts a lower carbon footprint for harvesting and transporting biomass fuel compared to large-scale centralized facilities. And it is considered the most competitive renewable energy on the market compared to PV, wind or other renewable sources.

To get energy-conscious consumers, farmers and light industry started, they also sell equipment like chippers imported from Finland and small pellet mills to prepare woody biomass and wood waste for these applications. Their most recent innovation is a Micro CHP system that runs on producer gas created from wood chips.

The challenges? Firstly, funding for the project and secondly legislation. BC does not have a feed-in-tariff which makes it more difficult to interest 'grid' people in CHP technology. Perhaps we should take a lesson from Ontario and Saskatchewan as their feed-in-tariff policy is more conducive to making CHP technology attractive.

 Essentially this eco-company enhances existing technology to take it to the next level and improve performance and automation. Learn more! The BioMass Power Generation test and demonstration facility is open for educational purposes and the shop is open for business. What’s John’s favorite aspect of his work? Simple, creating a better environment!

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Story by: Naomi Gourlay, Digital Minds Inc.