Biogas and synthetic fuels
Learn about biogas solutions from Finland >>>
Biovoima (Finland)
Biovoima Oy Ltd. is a turnkey provider and technology integrator for sustainable biomethane plants. Biomethane is a renewable natural gas that can substitute for natural gases in industrial use and as a traffic fuel.
Biovoima offers a large spectrum of services from biogas plant design to construction and commissioning, chooses the best available technologies for overall solution, takes care on technology integration and lifecycle management.
In 2023, Biovoima has delivered a biogas plant in the Tallinn area, that is at the same time the first biogas plant in the entire Baltics. The plant treats household and commercial biowaste that is mostly food waste and produces biomethane for the natural gas network and fuel for the CNG-powered vehicles.
Video: Biovoima Tallinn biomethane plant
More information: Biovoima
Doranova (Finland)
Doranova is a Finnish environmental engineering company. Doranova delivers e.g. highly flexible landfill gas and leachate water solutions and innovative biogas plants.
Wetferm plants are optimal for agricultural side streams such as liquid manure, dry manure and green biomasses. Individual substrates can have high solid matter content, but the substrate mix should be pumpable, at least after pre-treatment.
Solidferm plants are designed to process high solid content substate mixed such as ones with high volume of dry manures and green biomasses. Plants can process substrate mixes up to 25 % of dry matter content.
Hardferm plants are engineered to process the most challenging substrates available. It is high solid matter content with high level of impurities or large particle size, such as sand and stones. Mixed waste that contains biowaste or forest industry side streams are well suited for this plant type. In addition, Hardferm plants enable the digestion of by-streams from the food industry containing, for example, bone fractions.
Hardferm biogas plants are modular and their capacity can be increased by implementing 1-4 individual reactors next to each other. Hardferm technology can also be integrated with other technologies designed by Doranova like Wetferm and Solidferm technologies, whereby part of the waste stream is diverted to use that requires heavy digestion technology, and part to lighter and thus more affordable plant processes.
More information: https://www.doranova.fi/en/
Biogas ecosystem in the Oulu region (Finland)
The waste management company of the Oulu region Kiertokaari is an enterprise owned mainly by the city of Oulu and partly by seven other municipalities. Kiertokaari operates waste management center in Rusko, Oulu and smaller waste collection stations in other municipalities.
Kiertokaari uses biogas as an energy source in its own operations and sells it to their industrial customers. In addition, they sell biogas as a transport fuel at their own distribution station. In 2020, altogether 2.7 million cubic meters of biogas collected by Kiertokaari from both landfills and biogas plant was utilized in Oulu, replacing 1.1 million litres of light fuel oil. In total 1.9 million cubic meters of biogas was collected from the closed and currently used waste disposal areas of the Rusko Waste Centre. The recovery of biogas from landfills, calculated using the FOD (First Order Decay) method, prevented the release of gas into the air and the emission of about 12,900 tons of CO2.
The development of the biogas ecosystem started already in 1997, when Kiertokaari started pumping biogas from the waste disposal area now known as Ruskotunturi. Since then, biogas has been utilized in the city of Oulu as an energy source for industry and for the needs of Kiertokaari.
In 1999, Kiertokaari built a biogas pipeline from the waste centre to the area of Oulu University Hospital. Biogas was used to produce steam for disinfecting hospital equipment in the hospital’s own power plant. The central laundry of the city of Oulu (Oulun Keskuspesula Ltd.), located in the same block as the hospital, started to heat the water in the washing machines with steam. The laundry washes 30,000 pieces of textiles a day, including hospital laundry. The hospital’s equipment maintenance stopped using biogas in 2017 but is now considering a return to biogas. The laundry moved to another location in Oulu, but it continues to utilize biogas as its main energy source.
Over the years, the gas collection network originating from the landfill bank has been expanded. Today, there are more than 10 km of gas collection pipelines, about 70 gas collection wells and two pumping stations.
In 2006, Kiertokaari has acquired a microturbine plant to generate electricity from biogas for the waste centre for their own needs, and sells the surplus electricity to the grid. In addition, Kiertokaari utilizes waste heat generated in electricity production to the heat properties of Rusko Waste Centre.
In 2015, a company named Watrec Ltd. built a biogas plant at the Rusko Waste Centre on behalf of Biotehdas Ltd. Since then, Kiertokaari has purchased the treatment service of household and commercial biowaste treatment from this biogas plant, as well as the produced biogas (in 2020 – 0.8 million cubic meters). The biogas plant also treats solid fat waste separated from grease separation well waste at the Rusko Waste Centre’s liquid waste treatment plant and liquid waste from milk processing operations. The digestate generated by the biogas plant is utilized as fertilizer for farms. Biotehdas Ltd. has sold the biogas plant to Gasum Ltd. a few years ago.
In 2017, Kiertokaari has invested in a gas processing plant and gas filling station. Kiertokaari processes transport fuel from biogas generated in the treatment of biowaste, which they sell at their own gas station. Kiertokaari was the first to open a biogas station in Oulu.
Since the restriction of landfilling of organic waste, adopted in 2016, the methane content of the gas generated in the landfill has been decreasing. The gas processing plant cleans landfill gas of the impurities, allowing Kiertokaari to use the gas for 10 years longer than would otherwise have been possible. Purified biogas is mixed with raw gas and pumped to customers with optimal methane content.
Starting from 2020, the city of Oulu’s public transport uses four biogas buses. Kiertokaari has built a separate gas station for buses. Now also garbage tracks use biogas from Rusko.
Currently, Kiertokaari produces 93 % of the electricity needs of the Rusko Waste Centre from biogas and solar panels. In terms of heat production, Kiertokaari is completely self-sufficient utilizing heat generated in the production of electricity at the microturbine plant for heating of properties, and additionally uses biogas in their boiler.
Since 1997, biogas produced in Kiertokaari is utilized in industrial processes, i.a. mineral wool production, laundry (water heating), plastic production (heat), and concrete production (heating raw materials), and soon local hospital will utilize biogas from Rusko for their needs.
Source: Overview of municipal solid waste management in Finland, Kiertokaari Oy Ltd.
Gasum (Finland)
Gasum is the leading producer of biogas and processor of biodegradable waste fractions in the Nordic countries. Gasum produces biogas and recycled nutrients from a variety of waste streams in Finland and Sweden and develops the Nordic gas filling station network serving heavy-duty vehicles in particular.
More information: https://www.gasum.com/en/About-gasum/Information-about-Gasum/Gasum-in-brief/
Q Power (Finland)
Q Power has developed unique technologies to enable the efficient production of carbon-neutral synthetic fuels that replace fossil fuels. The biocatalytic methanation technology utilizes microbes originally isolated from a Finnish marshland and enables efficient processing of carbon dioxide into valuable products. The technology provided by QPower is the most efficient currently on the market: process efficiency of methanation is 82 %. The possibilities for using technology to produce other production fractions are also excellent.
Video: Q Power – Concrete solutions for fightling climate change
More information: https://qpower.fi/
Green Genius (Lithuania)
Green Genius is a European renewable energy company with 2 GW of biogas & biomethane, wind, and solar projects in development across eight countries. We actively promote the transition to renewable energy and have over 15 years of experience producing sustainable energy. Green Genius projects generate 320 GWh of green energy per year, preventing over 212,000 tons of CO2 emissions. Green Genius is part of the Modus Group.
Video: What is Green Genius?
More information: https://greengenius.com/