NIB co-finances new biomass heating plant in Finland
The Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) has signed a 15-year loan with the Finnish utility Lahti Energia for the construction of the new biomass-fuelled heating plant, the Kymijärvi III.
The project is part of the City of Lahti’s plan to halve CO2 emissions by 2025, compared to 1990 levels.
The new 170MW facility will replace the existing 350MW coal-fired plant, Kymijärvi I, which will come to the end of its technical lifetime in 2020.
The new plant will produce heat for the district heating network of the City of Lahti and Hollola.
The new bio-fuelled plant is designed in accordance with the best available technologies and will use certified biomass as its primary fuel, NIB said in a statement.
Kymijärvi III will also be equipped with efficient flue gas treatment to comply with the EU’s Industrial Emissions Directive.
The design includes efficient flue gas treatment, heat recovery from the flue gas, and treatment of condensate from heat recovery, which estimates say will improve overall efficiency by 10–15%.
The project is expected to decrease CO2 emissions by up to 500,000 tonnes per year, while emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are assessed to decrease by about 600 tonnes per year.
Lahti Energia estimates the total cost of the heat production project to be around €165 million.
Lahti Energia, owned by the City of Lahti, was founded in 1907 as a versatile energy company that invests in eco-efficiency and emerging technologies.
