Glacier High School (Kalispell MT) Wood Fired Boiler

[TMonter]

Just figured I'd post some information on the boiler project I completed recently.

This is a wood fired boiler in a school running on wood Fuel.

The Glacier boiler system utilizes the following:

Boilersmith Firebox 3-Pass Firetube Boiler with Sootblowers

Underfire Stoker Feed System

Fully Modulating PLC Loop Based Controls

Carriage Reclaim System

Automatic Ash Removal

Backup Gas Burner

It's a really cool system to watch operate and the savings are substantial.

The savings over natural gas are about $35-40.00/hr and they are planning on using chips from logging residue operations.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Outstanding, TMonter. Thanks for sharing.

What's the output?
How is the fuel unloaded, stored, reclaimed and handled?
What's the target MC?
I assume a licensed boiler operator is required, but that varies from state to state. Is that a new, fulltime job, or is existing staff handling the workload?
How many tons of material is burned per day?
Is it delivered in hogged form, or processed onsite.

It must be satisfying to be involved in such a progressive project. In the school wood-fired boiler projects I'm familiar with, (Vermont), the physical plant is an important educational tool as well as a good, economical, locally-sustainable way to heat a school.

 

[TMonter]

What’s the output?

The gross output is about 8 Million Btu/hr, net output is 6.5 - 7 Million Btu/hr dependant on fuel moisture. It is a hot water system.

How is the fuel unloaded, stored, reclaimed and handled?

Fuel is unloaded by 25 ton live bottom (walking floor) trucks, fuel is stored in a concrete room and reclaimed by the fuel reclaim auger (Video in the pictures)

What’s the target MC?

The system target moisture is 40% but it will burn 20-50% moisture fuel. It's designed to burn a chipped fuel product which is substantially different from a ground fuel product.

I assume a licensed boiler operator is required, but that varies from state to state. Is that a new, fulltime job, or is existing staff handling the workload?

The system is largely unmanned and usually gets checked every 4-8 hours. A licensed low-pressure boiler operator maintains the boiler system.

How many tons of material is burned per day?

Approximately 8 Tons of fuel is burned per day, but actual fuel input depends on load and fuel moisture.

Is it delivered in hogged form, or processed onsite.

Delivered in processed (but hopefully chipped and not hogged. Hogged fuel that is not screened properly really won't work on this system) form, processed in the woods and then trucked to the School.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Thanks. Around here in the Northeast, whole tree chips are bringing about $30 a ton. That's about twice what they brought a few years ago. In the Midwest, it's closer to $15 still, because they don't have much competition from biomass power plants. Not like you see in Maine and New Hampshire.

You gotta like big savings for the school district using locally-produced renewables. Now if only they could figure out how to run the busses on hogged fuel.

I know a few loggers in Kalispel. Beautiful country; nice people.

 

[JustWood]

Thats great ! I wish more projects like this were in the works. Just the waste that isn't recoverable as firewood from my operation would be enough to keep that size system in raw product. About 10 ton a day of hogged material goes out of here daily and it's alot cleaner than logging slash.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Are you talking mulch or hog fuel, Lee?

You should go talk to your local school board. Maybe they'd like to save $35 to $40 an hour, too. Heck, probably more than that in the Northeast, since they likely heat with oil.

 

[JustWood]

All scraps to small to make a decent piece of firewood are hogged and blown into sawdust bin. Then sold locally for animal bedding.

 

[leaddog]

All scraps to small to make a decent piece of firewood are hogged and blown into sawdust bin. Then sold locally for animal bedding.

If that wood is dry it sounds like it would be good fuel for some of the gasifiers. My eko80 burns dry wood chips real well, as long as I have some other wood in with it. Ichipped a large wagon gravity box load to try and use it to start my fires with and then shovel some in each time I load.

leaddog