EcoTech plans CHP industrial park in BC

Mar. 17, 2011, Vancouver – EcoTech Energy
Group, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, has acquired the primary site for
the ecoTech McBride eco-Industrial Park and the planned, biomass-fuelled,
combined heat and power (CHP) electricity generating station. The site is
located 7 km northwest of McBride, British Columbia, on Yellowhead Highway 16.
EcoTech plans to proceed immediately with re-zoning and permitting of the
planned operations. The finished eco-Industrial Park will have a variety of
eco-friendly industries, including tenants from initiatives that require
reliable and adequate heat and power services from the planned CHP station. The
site is currently abandoned and contains derelict buildings that will be
replaced with a modern industrial complex of sustainable greenhouses, an
aquaculture facility, and a cold store that will heated/chilled by heat
exchangers fed by the surplus heat from power generation. Logging residuals and
culls will fuel the CHP station.

The site currently features the northwest
re-closure switch station of the BC Hydro islanding system, recently installed
to encompass all McBride consumers in the 20-km Highway 16 corridor between
Lamming Mills and Holmes River. The power island was installed to buffer
problems that McBride was suffering from being the highest blackout area on the
BC Hydro grid and it is now serviced by emergency BC Hydro biodiesel generators
that are scheduled to be phased out as local independent power producers come
online. At that time, the Robson Valley Independent Power Producers, including
ecoTech's McBride Energy Corporation, Holmes River Hydro, Castle Mountain
Power, and Snowshoe Power, will be able to prevent the rolling power surges,
which still plague the line and damage electronics in the village. Line losses
in the Valley will be reduced dramatically.

A second adjacent expansion site is under
discussion, and ecoTech looks forward to announcing its plans for the site in
its 165-acre entirety when completed.

ecoTech is in the ground-breaking stage of
three large projects located across North America, in both Canada and the
United States. Using local wood waste biomass, these projects will provide
electricity and fuel to multiple communities, with excess energy production
available to external utility companies and energy brokers. EcoTech's focus is
within North America first, with plans to pursue other world markets
subsequently. It has evaluated a number of value-added processes to provide
maximum return on investments and meet market demands for biomass products. Using
low-cost heat and steam vented from the adjacent power station, biomass will be
processed at temperatures ranging from 200 to 320°C in the absence of oxygen to
produce torrefied pellets. Torrefied pellets and briquettes will be produced
for markets in Europe, North America, and other areas where coal-fired power
plants are seeking low-carbon fuels.