Customer: Stella-Jones
Transformation Industry
City: Delson
Start: 2010
Stella Jones Inc., a major Canadian manufacturer of pressure treated wood railway ties for railway infrastructure and pressure treated telephone poles, mandated FINTEX to carry out an energy audit of the companies Delson plant.
The principal objective of this study was to define energy efficiency projects which would reduce the plants natural gas consumption. The energy balance carried out indicated that only a small part of the energy produced is used for the production process and a large amount is lost due to inefficient steam piping distribution and other plant processes such as incineration and space heating.
We recommended the following projects to be implemented: installation of a new vacuum pump for treatment cylinders, reduction of the incinerators operating temperature, optimization of cylinder ventilation, decentralization of plant steam heating system, installation of radiant heaters, repair of steam traps, insulation of the steam distribution line and the installation of a heat recovery system on boiler blowdown.
The mandate was to prepare drawings and specifications for the installation of new vacuum pumps with oil seals for the treatment cylinders. The objective of the mandate was to finalize the design of the system, prepare detailed drawings, specifications and obtain bids from contractors for the execution of the project.
This study evaluated the energy saving associated with the conversion of all plant steam users to natural gas.
FINTEX has defined the necessary modifications to the wood dryer for its conversion to natural gas, installed new steam boiler and radiant heaters, obtained bids for the new equipment and determined the grants available for the conversion project. As an alternative project FINTEX has evaluated the capital investment costs associated to the installation of a biomass boiler using waste wood from the saw mill.
In order to reduce production cycle time and the fumes generated by the treatment cylinders, FINTEX was mandated to install a cooling system on the treatment cylinders.
The mandate included the preparation of engineering documents for the installation of the proposed system, obtaining bids from contractors for the installation of the equipment and the administrative and technical work to finalize the grant application for the project (Gaz-Métro and Bureau de l’éfficacité et de l’innovation énergetique de Québec ).
