About Us

History

Incorporated the spring of 2004, PBE has been committed to transforming agricultural crop residues into a solid fuel to be used in boilers currently burning coal across Manitoba and beyond. The plant consists of a cubing facility capable of densifying various types of products; flax shive, corn stocks, barley straw, and residue from seed cleaning plants. Sugar cane and switch grass are currently being studied.

The creation of Prairie Bio-Energy was the result of many months of research and experimentation by Stephane Gauthier. The project was launched since the potential and feasibility of bio-mass energy, as a solid fuel, had been confirmed. The remaining challenges were:

i. to create a commercial viable product; and
ii. to develop a production process for the bio-mass fuel.

The product had to be from zero-value materials, lower priced than coal and useable in stokers without excessive retrofitting. The process had to be energy efficient and easily implemented in agricultural regions due to the low density of agricultural residue.

By April 2005, construction of the plant, the installation of the cuber and the creating of the in-feed and material handling system were ready for the trial runs. The major challenge was the binding factor of the cubes. PBE has refined the process and we are now producing solid bio-mass fuel cubes using a blend of flax shive and wood residues.