Metso to supply CHP boiler plants to Fortum in Finland and in Latvia

Metso will supply boiler plants for combined heat and power production (CHP) to Fortum Power and Heat Oy in Järvenpää, Finland, and to Fortum Jelgava SIA in Jelgava, Latvia. The plants will provide district heat to the towns of Järvenpää and Tuusula in Finland and Jelgava in Latvia, as well as electricity to grid.

The value of the orders, which is included in Energy and Environmental Technology’s second quarter 2011 orders received, is not disclosed. The plants are scheduled to start up in mid 2013.

For both Järvenpää and Jelgava, Metso's EPC delivery is a full-scope solution from fuel feeding to flue gas cleaning. The plants are designed to use biomass fuels including also peat and some clean recycled wood, thus replacing natural gas or oil of the existing plants. The investments help to reduce CO2 emissions and increase the use of local biofuels in both the regions of Järvenpää and Jelgava.

Fortum is expanding its CHP business in the Baltic Rim area. Their first CHP plant in Estonia, supplied by Metso, was started up in 2009, and they continued on to complete several other projects in the area. In these CHP plants Fortum invests in renewable energy production with high power-to-heat ratio. The Jelgava plant is the first biofuel plant of this scale in Latvia.

The European Union member states have been required to provide 20 percent of final energy consumption from renewable energy production by 2020. Latvia’s renewable energy share is already among the highest in the EU, with hydropower being the key resource, and Latvia’s national target is to increase the share of renewable energy sources up to 42 percent by 2020. In Finland, the target is to increase the share of renewable energy sources from the current 25 percent to 38 percent by 2020.