In Finland, forest industry and energy technology major Valmet Oyj has announced that it is to deliver energy balance and district heating accumulator optimization solutions to compatriot energy major Fortum’s energy production plants and assets in Espoo.
The new solutions will be integrated with Fortum’s existing Valmet Distributed Control System (DCS), leveraging advanced automation and predictive energy management.
The mission-critical solutions enhance the company’s flexible and reliable participation in electricity reserve markets while improving the cost efficiency of district heat production.
The production fleet of Fortum’s district heating system has undergone massive changes in recent years, becoming increasingly electricity-based. We have significantly expanded our electric boiler capacity while shutting down fossil fuel-based production capacity. To succeed in the volatile energy markets, we must be able to dispatch our electric boiler production optimally and participate efficiently in the reserve markets. Using Valmet’s advanced process control and optimization solutions, we aim to balance the availability of electricity with district heat demand. Valmet’s energy balance optimizer will steer the electric boilers according to optimized production plans, and the district heating accumulator optimization will take care of balancing the heat distribution to our customers, said Lauri Lötjönen, Process Control Engineer, Fortum Heating & Cooling Nordics.
Enable more efficient energy production and use
The delivery, the value of which has not been disclosed, includes solutions that are part of the Valmet Digital Solutions portfolio: the Valmet DNAe Energy Balance Optimizer for regulating power production and consumption, and a customized solution for optimizing the district heating network accumulators.
The district heating solution is based on the main control and allocation application for district heating accumulators, which coordinates pressure differentials across the network’s heat storage facilities as well as the timing of charging and discharging to align with the objectives of other production units.
Together, these solutions enable more efficient energy production and use, support participation in the electricity reserve market, and improve the cost efficiency of district heat production.
We are proud to deliver optimization solutions to our long-term customer Fortum, enabling the company to enhance the management of its multi-located production assets in a multi-market environment. It is also rewarding to see how our solutions enable increasingly effective participation in the electricity market. Over the past year, the Finnish energy market has seen significant growth in automation, and this project is an excellent example of that development, said Teijo Salonpää, Senior Sales Manager, Automation Solutions business area, Valmet.
