Fortum Power and Heat Oy
Press release
28 January 2011
The inauguration of Fortum's combined heat and power plant (CHP) will be held today in Pärnu, Estonia. The new CHP plant in Pärnu will use local fuels like woodchips, wood residues from industry and milled peat as fuels. The production capacity of the CHP plant is 24 megawatts (MW) of electricity and 50 MW of heat. Its annual sales volume will be 110 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity and 220 GWh of heat, which covers the district heating demand of all Pärnu.
"Our new Pärnu CHP plant is highly efficient and environmentally friendly. The environmental impact from the production process of heat and electricity at the plant has been reduced to a minimum thanks to its fluidized bed technology boiler and local bio fuels. This is well aligned with Fortum's strategy that aims at as low as possible CO2 emissions in all production", says Per Langer, Executive Vice President, Fortum Heat Division. "We are also very proud of the fact that the Pärnu construction site was a champion with regard to safety – not a single accident causing a lost workday happened during the entire term of construction."
In operation since November 2010, the Pärnu plant is Fortum's second CHP plant in Estonia that runs on local fuels. Fortum estimates that ten more towns in Estonia have the potential to adopt similar, but smaller capacity CHP plants in the future.
The new plant has created 16 new workplaces in operation of the plant and about 300 indirect workplaces in fuel purchase chain and in other services for the plant. The value of the investment is around EUR 80 million.
Fortum Heat Division
Communications
Further information: Jaakko Vähä-Piikkiö, Vice President, Baltic Region, Fortum, Heat Division, tel. +358 50 453 2009
Fortum
Fortum's purpose is to create energy that improves life for present and future generations. We provide sustainable solutions that fulfil the needs for low emissions, resource efficiency and energy security, and deliver excellent value to our shareholders. Our activities cover the generation, distribution and sale of electricity and heat as well as related expert services.
Fortum's operations focus on the Nordic countries, Russia and Baltic Rim area. In the future, the fast-growing, liberalizing Euro-Asian energy markets provide additional growth opportunities. In 2009, Fortum’s sales totalled EUR 5.4 billion and operating profit was EUR 1.8 billion. We employ approximately 11,000 people. Fortum’s shares are quoted on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki. Further information: www.fortum.com