The government’s program aims to stop peat burning by 2030, but many cities are well ahead of schedule.
Peat use in energy production is now being phased out in Finland. Over the last two years, peat use has fallen at an annual rate of 20-25%, and Neova (formerly Vapo) is projected to reduce it by as much as 30% next year.
Neova’s director of peat production Pasi Rantosen According to the Commission, the abandonment of peat has been mainly due to the sharp rise in the price of allowances and tax solutions.
Rantonen predicts that the decline in peat use will probably accelerate further.
“It’s hard for me to find any bigger user in 2025 that would use peat on an industrial scale. Yes, they are really scarce with the current plan, ”says Rantonen.
“Big changes are coming. There are still many power plants in Finland where technology does not allow for the complete abandonment of peat, but investments must be made before it can switch to other fuels. I know there are calculations going on among the customers about when the change would be made, ”says Rantonen.
In the government program it is outlined that the energy use of peat will be at least halved by 2030, but in many places it is ahead of schedule. For example, Seinäjoki Energia will switch to completely peat-free energy this year, Tampereen Sähkölaitos during 2023 and Oulun Energia by the end of 2024.
Vesa Hätilä, CEO of Seinäjoki Energy, says that the city has been heated with peat for the last 40 years, but now it is undergoing rapid change.
“It’s no longer profitable. We had better-than-ever net sales in the heating business last year and worse earnings than ever before. We are now giving up the use of peat, ”says Hätilä.
A new bioboiler will be completed in Seinäjoki next autumn, and it will operate without peat. In addition, heating will be provided by electricity when the price of electricity is affordable. The electric boiler that will be completed for this purpose will also be completed this year, Hätilä says.
“Our goal was to be carbon neutral in 2030, but now it looks like we will be in 2023. Peat should no longer be burned,” says Hätilä.
According to him, on behalf of the fleet, it would have been possible for another ten years.
“More than 50 million of the money will return, but then we will be a cleaner plant for a while and we will move towards non-combustible technologies,” says Hätilä.
The Tampere power plant announced on Tuesday that peat burning will end by 2024, when it was not planned to end until 2030.
Oulu In 2019, the share of peat in energy was still 60 per cent.
“With the new power plant, technical constraints were reduced and last year the share of peat was only about a third. This year it will be about a quarter, which means that the use of peat has decreased a lot in a short time, ”says Oulun Energia’s Business Director Pertti Vanhala.
CEO of Alva in Jyväskylä Tuomo Kantola says that peat accounts for about a third of Alva’s fuels.
“It’s down. In 2019, the share was still about half. ”
According to Kantola, the direction of Jyväskylä is to move to completely peat-free energy production by 2030 at the latest.
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