Moncton Wood Chip Biomass Heating Pilot Project

The City of Moncton will replace an oil-fired boiler at its municipal operations centre with a biomass boiler as part of a pilot project to test a low-carbon district energy system connecting the administrative offices and garage, and the central stores. The current boiler is at the end of its lifespan and the recommendation to replace it emerged out of a Capital Asset Study and Energy Audit in 2016. The project would be the City's first biomass heating system and one of a few wood chip boilers in New Brunswick. It would reduce fossil fuel energy consumption for the three buildings by 49% per year, lower operating costs by $23,745 per year and reduce corporate emissions by 169 tonnes CO2e per year. As part of the pilot, municipal staff will track real-time operating costs and GHG reductions over an 18-month period. If the project is successful, the City of Moncton is interested in expanding the district energy system by connecting the warm storage building in the same complex, which would reduce the emissions of the entire system by 58% annually. The City of Moncton also sees potential to install another district energy system at a site called the Coliseum, which would reduce their annual GHG emissions by another 515 tonnes CO2e per year. The City of Moncton has been producing wood chips from low impact select harvesting of its municipal forest for nearly four years, and shipping them to Prince Edward Island where they are used to heat government buildings and schools. While Moncton was initially planning to install a natural gas boiler at their Operations Centre, they see an opportunity with this pilot project to lower their carbon footprint and increase local energy resilience. The project emerged out of a group study from the Association of Francophone Municipalities of New Brunswick (AFMNB) to determine the long-term viability of local residual biomass supply and its potential to power municipal buildings (MCIP 15251). In a separate follow-up study, the City used NRCan's RETScreen 4 software to model the combination of a biomass system connecting different on-site buildings with various combinations of energy retrofits. Stakeholders, including the two local biomass providers, were consulted on multiple occasions and provided comments on system designs and cost. Moncton is a member of the Partners for Climate Protection Program and has completed through milestone three, an integrated corporate and community sustainability plan. This initiative has knowledge value in terms of providing design and operation data on a municipally managed biofuel systems in New Brunswick, as well as showcasing the technology to encourage wider uptake should it be successful. (Project description from original funding application)