july2017

236 237 PINNACLE RENEWABLE ENERGY INC. SUSTAINABLEWOOD PELLETS P innacle Renewable Energy Inc. based in Richmond, British Columbia, is a leader in the production and sale of wood pellets used as a fuel for heat and for the generation of power.According to Vaughan Bassett,Vice President of Sales & Logistics, the company was founded by brothers, Rob and Jim Swaan in the late eighties as a manufacturer of pelletized ani- mal feed.“The original owners looked around and saw a whole lot of wood fiber,much of it in the form of shavings and sawdust, that wasn’t being utilized, and they came up with pelletizing wood for the purpose of providing a fuel for thermal energy.” Having no model that they could relate to, in terms of equipment and processes, the brothers experimented until they came up with the right combination of motors and dies in order to successfully extrude wood pellets from fibrous woody rawmaterial.“They kept at it until they got something that worked,” says Bassett,“and that started the whole Pinnacle Pellet empire.”Today, the company oper- ates seven pellet plants throughout British Columbia-Houston,Burns Lake,Meadowbank,Quesnel,Williams Lake,Armstrong,and Lavington- and one newplant,currentlyunder construction inAlberta.Its 250-plus employees produce about one and half million tons of wood pellets annually. In the beginning when there was only one plant, Pinnacle be-