Renewa to supply boiler plant expansions to Kurikan Kaukolämpö

Kurikan Kaukolämpö Oy, a district heating provider owned by the town of Kurikka and the energy company Fortum, has commissioned Renewa Oy to supply the expansions of its boiler plants at Kurikka and Ilmajoki in Finland. Renewa will deliver a new 6 MW boiler unit to each plant. The new grate boilers that utilise domestic wood-based fuel help the district heating company to considerably reduce the proportion of oil as an energy source.

Kurikan Kaukolämpö currently produces in its two plants a total of about 100 GWh of thermal energy per year. The Ilmajoki plant features a 4 MW grate boiler, and the Kurikka plant both a 6 MW fluidised bed boiler and a 5 MW grate boiler. The boiler equipment of both plants were delivered by companies that have since been merged with Renewa. Over the past few years, a lot of new customers have connected to the district heating network of Kurikan Kaukolämpö, resulting in a need for added capacity.

The new boiler plants more than double the company’s production capacity. The company aims to utilise renewable fuel originating from its own province.

“In recent times, the proportion of oil in our heat production has been unsustainably large. Thanks to the boiler expansion, we will be able to replace a lot of it with domestic renewable energy. At the Kurikka plant, the proportion of domestic fuel will increase by about 30%, and at Ilmajoki by as much as 50%,” says Pekka Haapalainen, the company’s Managing Director.

In a bidding competition, Renewa was selected as the supplier of the boiler and related equipment. According to Haapalainen, the scale was tipped in Renewa’s favour by the reasonable overall price of the company’s bid as well as the good experiences Kurikan Kaukolämpö has had with Renewa’s earlier deliveries of high-quality boiler plants.

The new boilers will be up and running at Kurikka around the turn of the year and at Ilmajoki in early 2012.

For further information, please contact:

Pekka Haapalainen, Managing Director, Kurikan Kaukolämpö Oy
Tel. +358 400 158 771, e-mail: pekka.haapalainen(at)kurikankaukolampo.fi

Tuomas Timonen, Managing Director, Renewa Oy
Tel. +358 50 386 0448, e-mail: tuomas.timonen(at)renewa.fi