Toyota Material Handling Manufacturing Sweden AB (TMHMS) in Mjölby and Svensk Biogas i Linköping AB, a subsidiary of municipal energy utility Tekniska verken i Linköping AB (Tekniska verken) have announced a "unique" off-take agreement. Toyota will replace fossil LPG, currently used as fuel in its paint shop drying lines, with liquefied biomethane (LBG). The first delivery of the 10-year off-take deal is expected to take place in the latter half of 2019.
Located in Mjölby, Sweden, Toyota Material Handling Manufacturing Sweden AB (TMHMS) is the largest manufacturing facility within Toyota Material Handling Europe for forklift trucks and allied warehousing and material handling equipment.
According to a statement April 19, the agreement with Tekniska verken extends over 10 years and covers up to 25 GWh of liquefied biomethane (LBG) per annum, which is enough to cover the manufacturing of over 130 000 trucks annually at Toyota. The LBG will be produced at Tekniska verken’s production plant in Linköping.
The cooperation with Toyota is a major and very important step for Tekniska verken and our vision, to build with our customers the world’s most resource-efficient region. The investment means that we can now offer liquid biomethane to industry as well as to heavy transport and buses in local traffic in the future, said Klas Gustafsson, Chairman of the Svensk Biogas and vice-CEO Tekniska verken i Linkökping.
In addition to replacing Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in the manufacturing process, Toyota and Svensk Biogas will initiate a co-operation aimed at evaluating the conversion of heavy transport vehicles, used to and from Toyotas facility in Mjölby, to LBG instead of fossil fuel.
Liquid biogas is an excellent fossil-free vehicle fuel for heavy vehicles, which is also near-produced, and we therefore see that it will be a key in the region’s conversion to fossil-free transport, said Mattias Philipsson, CEO of Svensk Biogas.
If this goes ahead, it would see Svensk Biogas building the region’s first public LBG refuelling station in Mjölby in close proximity to the E4 motorway.
We see this as a very important step in our goal of minimizing fossil fuel in our production. It is a natural step in our sustainability work, where we work towards ensuring that our materials handling products are both produced in a way that minimizes the impact on our environment, and that they can then be carried out in a manner that causes so low climate impact as possible. We are looking forward to working with Teniska verken and Svensk Biogas as we perceive that they are at the forefront of working on these issues, thus being a credible partner in our sustainability work, said Kristian Björkman, CEO of Toyota Material Handling Manufacturing Sweden AB.
The total investment cost for a biogas liquefaction production unit is estimated to be around SEK 68 million (≈ EUR 6.54 million) Of this 45 percent or SEK 30.6 million (≈ EUR 2.94 million) is eligible for funding via the Swedish Environmental protection Agency’s (Naturvårdsverket) Climate-Step (Klimatklivet) programme with the balance, SEK 37.4 million (≈ EUR 3.6 million) provided by Tekniska verken.
