Renewable Energy

y-products, which represent 21% of the
fuel, like the bundles of branches prepared
by the Kone-Yijälä bundler, that are reduced
to chips before burning as required for both
combustion supply line automation and
boiler efficiency. The volume of biofuels
consumed these last 20 years has tripled in
Finnish industry, and quadrupled in the sector
of municipal CHP plants and thermal
power plants.
R E P O R T
REPORT FROM CENTRAL FINLAND,
THE MODEL PROVINCE
FOR BIOENERGY IN A COUNTRY
THAT’S WORLD LEADER
IN THE SECTOR.
the north. With its buildings and overhead
conveyors seemingly stretching out forever
along the Jämsä River, Jämsänkoski one of
the biggest paper factories in Europe with a
production of 800 000 tons a year. 15 km.
downstream, its cousin in Kaipola, is almost
as big. This is “Paper Valley”.
These two sites alone absorb 4% of all of
Finland’s electricity consumption. In order
to improve their energy efficiency, a crucial
element for this sector, they have been
equipped with combined heat and power
(CHP) plants with fluidised bed combustion
(see article page 9). While their main job
continues to be the production of steam for
the industrial processes of the wood pulp
and paper production units (a fraction supplies
the district heating of the local village),
their turbines cover approximately 8%
of the plants’ electrical consumption. The
Jämsänkoski CHP plant, representing
46 megawatts of electricity (MWe), was
commissioned in April 2002. It’s adapted for
combustion of a biomass mix of various origins:
industrial waste (trunk bark before
transformation into pulp, black liquor (1) , etc.
representing 28%), peat (41%, see article
page 14), sawdust (6%), petrol (3%, to get
the main boiler started up). As well as forestry
Growing demand for forestry by-products
Their potential is considerable, essentially in
terms of forestry by-products, where the
industrial bio-waste deposit is stable. In
2001, they supplied 21.2 terawatt-hours
(TWh) of energy, while wood chips resulting
from wood cutting operations only counted
for 1.9 TWh. The national objective for 2010
is to bring this figure up to 10 TWh. A very
conservative ambition, especially when the
Finnish Forest Research Institute estimates
technically collectable quantities (without
taking costs into consideration) at more than
three times that figure. The volume of
burned wood chips already doubled last
year on the national level, and tripled in the
province of Central Finland alone, the leading
consumer in Finland, exceeding one million
cubic meters.
It should be said that between 1995 and
2001, the price of wood chips as “delivered
to the power plant” dropped 20%, while the
price of industrial bio-waste, even if it did
stay 20% lower, increased by almost a third,
accompanying a growing demand for biofuels.
The authorities concentrated their efforts in
the 1970s and 1980s on the rise in importance
of peat, whose production costs have
been cut in half since 1980, everyone’s attention
is now turned to forestry by-products
since a development program was launched
in 1993. In this way, 42 million euros were
invested between 1999 and 2003 in a wood
energy technology development program
“for machines as well as for optimisation of
forestry industry waste collection methods”,
points out Arvo Leinonen, Research Manager
in this sector at the Technical Research
Center of Finland (VTT) in Jyväskylä.
Low cost by treatment right on site
Transportation, which represents nearly half
of the cost of these forestry fuels, is the key
point to their profitability. Loaded by standard
timber trucks, but in a manner that is
also 1.5 times more dense than when
branches are simply piled up, the bundles
created on the lumbering sites spectacularly
optimise production costs for this fuel.
Treatment right on site, is also the added
value of the mobile chippers that transform >
The areas cleared of trees
are replanted, and Finland's
forest is expanding.
(1) These are types of waste
with mediocre energy content,
normally recycled by combustion
inside Finnish paper mills
for environmental reasons.
RENEWABLE ENERGY JOURNAL N°14 6