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When Buchanan Flooring LLC planned their new plant
in Aliceville, Alabama, cogeneration was a consideration right from
the very start. According to Bruce Nesmith, plant manager for the
producer of hardwood flooring (also known as strip flooring), they
needed a dependable and economical way to handle disposal of the
large volume of waste from their operation.
Logical Choice
Each daily eight-hour shift produces 48 tons of
waste, primarily sawdust. Hauling the waste away was viewed as a
marginal solution. There were buyers for the waste, and the price
was potentially acceptable; however; the biggest issue was dependability.
Would these buyers always be there, and would they always want the
full volume of waste the flooring operation produced? Cogeneration
was a logical choice to assure that waste disposal would always
be available and would be economically viable over the long haul.
In Buchanan's operation,
rough hardwood planks are kiln-dried for approximately one week
prior to processing into flooring. Steam is required for the kiln's
operation. The plant's wood waste fuels the boiler that produces
steam. But this steam is at a high pressure, about 270 psig. The
kiln uses steam at about 12 psig. Such low-pressure steam is one
of the outputs of the steam-driven turbine generator. The other
is electricity.
Electricity Uses
The electricity generated from this process is
used to power the plant's production operations, yielding significant
reduction of their power bill from the local utility company. During
periods when the plant is not consuming all the electricity the
generator can produce, excess capacity is shuttled next door to
the plant's sister company, Buchanan Lumber Company, a provider
of some of the flooring firm's raw material.
The lumber mill uses refrigeration kilns with a
strong continuous demand for power, making them an obvious "customer"
for the excess power. A single utility connection serves both plants,
and multiple meters are in place to allow Buchanan to verify savings
being realized by the cogeneration operation.
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The
power building houses the boiler and the turbine generator system.
Adjacent to it is the silo for storing sawdust collected by the
vacuum system (at left).
The
turbine generator installation included all associated electrical,
cable, and piping work.
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