Finnish finance and investment group Taaleri Oyj has disclosed that it has secured financing for a proposed 60 000 tonnes-per-annum (tpa) biocoal plant project in Finland and that the company's Board of Directors has made an investment decision to proceed.
At the end of 2020, Taaleri and municipal energy company Savon Voima Oyj unveiled plans to develop a commercial-scale biocoal plant to be built at Savon Voima’s Iiksenvaara combined heat and power (CHP) plant site in Joensuu, eastern Finland, subject to regulatory approvals and a final investment decision.
A positive investment decision has been made for the estimated EUR 20 million project. The Center for Economic Development, Transport, and the Environment have awarded a EUR 3.4 million grant in support of the project from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and the Climate Fund has granted a capital loan of EUR 5.0 million to the project.
A number of Finnish family-owned investment companies have also invested in the project.
Construction of the biocoal plant will begin in spring 2022 and the plant is expected to start production in mid-2023. The planned total production of the plant is about 60 000 tonnes of torrefied biomass per year.
The facility will use by-products from the forest industry and forestry as raw material, and it will use approximately 250 000 m3 of biomass, mainly bark and first thinnings.
Proven torrefaction technology
The core technology to be used in the project is based on NextFuel Torrefaction Technology from the Swedish company NextFuel AB.
Its Austrian subsidiary NextFuel Technology GmbH acquired the intellectual property (IP) of ACB, the torrefaction R&D consortium that developed a rotary drum torrefaction reactor and built the Frohnleiten torrefaction pilot plant in Austria in close collaboration with technology major Andritz AG.
NextFuel has since further developed the technology, widened the feedstock base preparing it for commercialization.
The plant will be built on the site of Savon Voima Oyj’s Iiksenvaara CHP plant. In addition to the land, Savon Voima will lease certain equipment to the plant and provide services to it.
There is also a plan to build a cluster around the plant, which includes Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), the University of Eastern Finland, Karelia University of Applied Sciences, and Business Joensuu.
The aim of the cluster is to develop products and refine new uses for torrefied biomass and biochar.
