Canadian Biomass Magazine

What is central heating with pellets all about?

October 15, 2020
By WPAC

Trumpeter Camp, a dormitory and dining facility for 93 oil field workers in Norman Wells, N.W.T., is fully heated using Maine Energy Systems wood pellet boilers. Photo credit: Brian Lickoch, Green Energy NWT Inc.

For more than two years, the Wood Pellet Association of Canada (WPAC) has been pursuing change in Canadian biomass boiler related standards that make it difficult and expensive for Canadians to acquire pellet-fired boilers for central heating. Most of the high-quality pellet boilers in the world are manufactured in western Europe, primarily in Austria and Germany, to the standards required by the European Union. These standards are acceptable in many countries around the world, and WPAC would like to see them acceptable here in Canada. Nearly all of the three million tonnes of wood pellets Wood Pellet Association members produce each year are shipped offshore to help other countries meet their greenhouse gas reduction goals. WPAC would like to see this domestic, renewable energy product used for the financial and environmental benefit of Canadians.

As WPAC has worked to promote the necessary regulatory changes required to make pellet central heating more accessible to Canadians, it has become clear that there is little understanding of pellet heating beyond that provided by pellet stoves. Pellet central heating is whole building heating that is fully automated, as is fossil fuel heating, without the manual fuel and ash handling pellet stove customers have come to know.

To help decision-makers in some Canadian organizations understand pellet central heating and the current state of the practice in Canada, WPAC has produced a simple document describing basic pellet central heating and its current adoption in several provinces of Canada.

The document may be accessed here.

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