By Isabella Kaminski

Metso is to supply boiler plants for combined heat and power (CHP) production using biomass to Fortum Power and Heat in Finland, and to Fortum Jelgava in Latvia.

The biomass CHP plants, which are scheduled to start up in mid-2013, will provide district heat to the towns of Järvenpää and Tuusula in Finland and Jelgava in Latvia, as well as electricity to the grid. The value of the orders has not been disclosed.

The Järvenpää and Jelgava biomass CHP plants are designed to use biomass fuels including also peat and some clean recycled wood, therefore replacing natural gas or oil used in the existing plants.

The two boiler plants, which have approximately 70 MWth steam capacity, will use bubbling fluidised bed (BFB) technology. The boilers will produce high pressure steam of 117 bar(g) and 527°C. The annual production of the Järvenpää plant is about 280 GWh of heat and about 130 GWh of electricity, whereas the Jelgava plant produces 230 GWh of heat and 110 GWh of electricity.

Fortum is expanding its combined heat and power business in the Baltic Rim area. Their first CHP plant in Estonia, supplied by Metso, started in 2009.

The Jelgava plant is the first biofuel plant of this scale in Latvia. Latvia's renewable energy share is already among the highest in the EU, with hydropower being the key resource, and it has a national target of increasing its share of renewable energy sources by up to 42% by 2020 (much higher than the EU obligation). In Finland, the target is to increase the share of renewable energy sources from the current 25% to 38% by 2020.