THE FIRST STOP ON THE TOUR WAS THE NEW EUR 320 million waste-to-energy plant at Vantaa, Finland’s fourth largest city with about 230 000 residents. This state-of-the-art plant achieves an impressive 95 percent energy conversion efficiency and produces about 50 percent of the heat energy demand (about 900 GWh or 100 MWth) and 30 percent of the electricity demand (about 600 GWh or 68 MWe) for the city. The plant, which was commissioned only a year earlier, replaced a natural gas fired plant. The change of fuel has meant Vantaa’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions decreased an estimated 30 percent and waste going to landfill has now been slashed to only about 2 percent. 50 Bioenergy International No 82, 6-2015 BIOENERGY 201 ASPECTS OF BIO The last visits on this tour were at a forest thinning site near Jyväskylä, where it was demonstrated that the Finns are still among the world’s leaders in the development of innovative forestry biomass-to-energy equipment and systems. At this site a fourth-generation Fixteri bundler at work showed how this system can offer significantly better economics for doing first commercial thinnings for energy use. Dr Minna Lappalainen, Managing Director of Fixteri Oy, explained how this was done by a higher recovery rate of biomass per hectare along with less handling costs, better drying and improved chipping options. At the same site Tommi Lahto, the managing director of LHM Hakkuri, demonstrated to the group how the Fixteri bundles were suited to his Giant chipper. As his truckmounted chipping system chipped bundle after bundle in a continuous stream into a waiting truck, Tommi explained the design features of these high capacity chippers. In his chip supply contracting business he uses about 13 of these mainly around southern Finland. He said that some of them have been working continuously since the late 1990s, and claims production of 3 million m³ of loose chip is achievable from a Giant chipper over its working life. » EVENT Sophisticated monitoring The intake of 320 000 tonnes of mixed municipal waste produced by about 1.5 million people resident in the province (which includes nearby cities of Helsinki and Espo) means a steady flow of 140-180 trucks a day through a sophisticated recording and monitoring process developed by the Finnish company Protocon. The trucks’ arrival times and net load weights of between 9-24 tonnes of waste are recorded by the company, and at the unloading point the load content is recorded by CCTV cameras as it is unloaded into a 38-metre deep bunker. An occasional random truck is directed to unload on a sorting apron and the content is checked for compliance. On average it takes 11 minutes between when a truck enters and leaves the gate. The second visit was to a 10 MW bubbling fluidised bed (BFB) boiler made by the Finish company Renewa, supplying district heat to the township of Rajamäki. This BFB plant is fuelled by any mix of forest chip, sawmill residues or milled peat, and is designed to be run with no staff on site and to be managed remotely. While it is visited once a day by one of the company staff it is managed from the control room of another of the company’s four district heating plants. Capital cost of this plant on its greenfield site was about EUR 4.5 million in 1997. Biomass bundler Fourth-generation energy wood bundler from Fixteri Oy that offers better economics for pre-commercial thinnings. According to Dr Minna Lappalainen, Managing Director of Fixteri Oy, this is achieved by a higher recovery rate of biomass per hectare along with less handling costs, better drying and improved chipping options. Jyväskylä, Finland, at the beginning of September was the place to be for the Bioenergy 2015 conference and tour. The informationpacked latter, which started from Helsinki airport the morning before, included people from Canada, USA, Australia and Japan. As in the past, the tour arranged by Benet, the Finnish bioenergy consulting company and conference organiser, was full of interest.
Bioenergy no 6 October 2015
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