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The Lyonsdale Biomass wood-fired cogeneration facility is located in the township of Lyonsdale, Lewis County, New York, approximately 95 miles northeast of Syracuse, New York. The 19 MW Lyonsdale Facility utilizes a Zurn boiler, Mitsubishi steam turbine, and a Brush generator to produce electricity for delivery to the New York Independent System Operator and 17,000 pounds per hour average steam flow to Burrows Paper Corporation.
The Lyonsdale facility consumes an average of 700 tons of wood chips per day for fuel, producing 5 tons of wood ash per day as a by-product. This wood ash, through a process developed by the Lyonsdale facility in conjunction with Cornell University, is tested and distributed to local farmers for use as a soil amendment and a liming substitute.
The Lyonsdale facility utilizes strict air and water pollution controls to comply with the rules and regulations mandated by the New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation and the EPA. Constant monitoring of the pollution controls is accomplished through automated systems supervised by the operating staff. Frequent reporting by Lyonsdale management to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ensures compliance with regulations.
Lyonsdale Biomass, LLC is a special purpose entity which owns and operates the plant in Lyonsdale. The company is owned by Catalyst Renewables, an energy project development company which focuses on renewable energy projects such as biomass, landfill gas, and geothermal resources for electricity production.
Lyonsdale Biomass provides a market for forest thinning and management materials. The Lyonsdale Facility also makes beneficial use of forest industry by-products that in the past have been disposed of in the limited North Country landfill space or have been left to decay on the forest floor, fostering insects and disease that can infect healthy trees and encourage wildfires. The plant also uses under-sized and diseased timber that has no other market for pulp chips or dimensional lumber. Trees that can be used for lumber or pulp wood are harvested and sent into those higher value usages.
Another source of fuel for the Lyonsdale Biomass is unadulterated wood. The wood is the by product of the lumber, pallet and furniture industries. Wood scraps and sawdust that cannot be used in the manufacturing process are supplied to the Lyonsdale Facility and burned as fuel. While neither of the above fuel sources is new to the industry, since many wood processors have long used this wood to fuel their manufacturing needs, this concept has expanded into a new market for this type of forest industry by-product and has utilized the remainder of the wood material that is too abundant for the existing industries to use for their energy needs.
Lyonsdale has more than fifty wood fuel suppliers that process and deliver the fuel to the Facility on a year round basis. More than 260,000 green tons are received each year. This infuses over $4 million dollars annually into the local New York State economy, providing landowners, sawmills, and loggers with a stable new market for their low-valued wood products.
The plant employs 20 full time people directly and as many as 100 timbermen as suppliers. The direct payroll is over $1,000,000 per year. The plant employees are highly skilled in boiler operations, welding, pipefitting, instrumentation, and fuel yard equipment operation. |
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