Valmet and HOFOR Energiproduktion A/S have signed a contract regarding delivery of a biomass-fired boiler plant and related biofuel storage and conveyor systems to HOFOR's Amagervaerket heat and power plant in Copenhagen. The new power plant will supply electricity and heat for the needs of the city of Copenhagen.

The order is included in Valmet's third quarter 2016 orders received. The value of the order is over EUR 150 million.

"The HOFOR biomass plant will be by value Valmet's largest boiler plant delivery so far. We have been able to use experiences from earlier similar type of projects in the design. The plant will fulfil tightening environmental requirements by utilizing efficient firing technique.

"This is an important order for our energy business and we estimate the employment impact to be about 1,000 man years including both Valmet's own and subcontractors' work. For Valmet the main employment impact will be in Tampere and Ulvila in Finland," says Bertel Karlstedt, President, Pulp and Energy business line at Valmet.

The investment will support the climate plan of Copenhagen, according to which the city aims to become the first CO2-neutral capital in the world by the year 2025. Installation of the power plant is scheduled to begin in July 2017, and the heat and power production will start in 2019.

The boiler plant to be supplied by Valmet will help to reduce CO2-emissions from the plant by a total of 1.2 million tons annually. "The investment supports HOFOR's strategy to reduce CO2 emissions through environmentally friendly and cost-efficient district heat production," says Carsten Schneider, Project Director at HOFOR.

Technical information about the delivery
Valmet's delivery includes a 500 MWf CYMIC boiler that uses circulating fluidized bed (CFB) technology, the district heat capacity of which will be 415 MJ/s. The power plant's net electricity production capacity will be approximately 150 MW.

The boiler will use a total of 1.2 million tons of sustainable wood chips per year. The new boiler plant will replace an old 600 MW coal-fired plant, the operation of which will end after the start-up of the new plant.

Additionally Valmet's delivery includes biofuel storage and conveyor systems, the capacity of which will be 105,000 cubic meters. The conveying system will feed the boiler with 900 cubic meters of wood chips in an hour, which corresponds to one 18 meters long trucks with biofuel every six minutes, 24 hours per day.

HOFOR is the largest utility company in Denmark with more than one million customers in the greater Copenhagen area. The company pays special attention to sustainable deliveries and renewable energy in its operations. HOFOR supplies district heat to 500,000 inhabitants, town gas to 300,000 inhabitants, and district cooling to 39 major customers. In addition, the company is in charge of water supply and waste water services of approximately one million inhabitants.