The new cogeneration project burns wood waste from the mill's processes. BC Hydro will receive more than half (approximately 15 MW) of the 25 MW generation plant's electricity, which is enough power to supply 17,000 homes.
The Harmac mill was acquired from bankrupt Pope & Talbot five years ago by Nanaimo Forest Products in a four-way partnership that includes Harmac workers and three private partners. The mill has had investments of more than $100 million in capital projects through government grants and its own funding to improve efficiencies and reduce its carbon footprint. Harmac president Levi Sampson said that work to upgrade the mill's operations to make it more cost effective and to make its operations more environmentally friendly will go on.
The mill paid for construction of the plant from its own sources, but the project comes on the heels of the completion of other major upgrades and renovations, worth $27 million, that were paid for from the federal government's Green Transformation Fund, intended to improve energy efficiency and environmental performance in Harmac's operations, according to a report by Nanaimo Daily News.com. In 2010, Harmac was among 38 pulp and paper mills across Canada to receive funding under the government's $1-billion aid package designed to prop up the nation's struggling pulp and paper industry.
The federal funding paid for upgrades to the mill's power boiler, improvements to two lime kilns, the replacement of two out-of-date water chillers, upgrades to three pulp machines, and the replacement of the mill's steam-driven turbines with electrical motors, among other projects, Nanaimo Daily News.com reported.
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