We at Fortum are contributing to making Stockholm and Espoo better and more sustainable places to live. Growing urban areas are typically burdened by high emissions and low efficiency in their energy production. Stockholm and Espoo stand out by leading the transition towards highly efficient and emission-free energy systems.
Together with our customers, stakeholders, and the two municipalities, we are enabling the cities to join the circular economy and depend increasingly on biomass, waste, recycled fuel and recovered heat to meet their energy needs. We are the biggest user of waste in energy production in the Nordics.
Stockholm aims to be fossil fuel free by 2040, and the district heating company Fortum Värme, co-owned by the City of Stockholm and Fortum, is transforming the energy system to help realize this goal. In recent years, we have launched several projects and invested more than EUR 700 million in new, sustainable heat production.
Our new combined heat and power (CHP) plants in Brista and Värtan rely solely on renewable and recycled fuel to heat 250,000 households. In addition, we plan to build a new bioenergy CHP plant in Lövsta, northwest Stockholm. The commissioning of this plant, together with our efforts to phase out coal within the next ten years, will aid the city in meeting its climate targets ahead of time.
Furthermore, we are developing unique and innovative solutions like Open District Heating to distribute energy from points with excess supply to those with excess demand, and Stockholm Data Parks for large scale heat recovery from data centres.
Digitisation solutions for customers, improved interconnections, and new storage solutions within the district heating network are just some of the other ways we are boosting Stockholm’s energy efficiency.
Espoo, too, is benefiting from our sustainable energy solutions and improving quality of life for its community. The city aims to be completely CO2 free by 2050, and we work continuously with them to meet this target.
Our pilot project with St1 in Otaniemi aims to build Finland’s first industrial-scale geothermal heat plant, which could potentially fulfil up to a tenth of Espoo’s district heating needs.
In Tapiola, gas from landfills is being used in district heating, while heat recovered from wastewater at our Suomenoja heat pump plant provides for about 15% of the city’s heating needs. This reduces CO2 emissions by about 50,000 tonnes per year – the equivalent of the yearly carbon emissions of 20,000 cars.
Heat is also being recovered from the data centres of Elisa, Tieto, Ericsson and Telia to provide district heating. In 2018, waste heat from Sonera’s facility alone will supply a tenth of Espoo’s heating needs. Heat from Ericsson’s data centre in Kirkkonummi will in turn warm some 1,000 single-family homes.
By transitioning our Kivenlahti heat plant to bio-pellets, we will reduce CO2 emissions by 50,000 tonnes per year. Bio-oil produced from felling waste by our bio-CHP plant in Joensuu will be used to generate district heat at the Vermo power plant, reducing CO2 emissions by another 3,000 tonnes annually.
In both Stockholm and Espoo, our Fortum Charge & Drive charging infrastructure for electric vehicles is a further means enabling citizens to lower their CO2 emissions. Additionally, our solar energy solutions and new energy usage systems empower customers to take advantage of flexibility in energy usage.
Together with the municipalities of Stockholm and Espoo, we are driving the transition towards a sustainable energy future. We invite you to join the change.