Big Coin­cid­ence at Small Finland in Brazil: Penedo and Oilon Col­lab­or­ate for Sus­tain­able Innov­a­tion

Finnish Company Helps Penedo Reduce Carbon Emis­sions and Boost Energy Effi­ciency

Penedo, Brazil – Penedo, affec­tion­ately known as “Small Finland” due to its unique Finnish her­it­age, has once again made head­lines for its remark­able con­nec­tion with Finland. The town belongs to Ita­ti­aia muni­cip­al­ity, in the South­ern of Rio de Janeiro state, and is very known as a tour­istic city, spe­cially during the winter when the weather is colder than other places as it is located in a  moun­tain­ous region. The town, in an unex­pec­ted turn of events and a “Big Coin­cid­ence”, as very nearby the city of Penedo, a Finnish company, Oilon, have joined forces to imple­ment an innov­at­ive solu­tion that will have sig­ni­fic­ant envir­on­mental bene­fits.

Oilon, a renowned Finnish energy tech­no­logy company, has provided a cutting-​edge solu­tion to an auto­mot­ive industry company located just 2 kilo­met­ers away from Penedo. The solu­tion aims to decar­bon­ize the heating process of the man­u­fac­tur­ing plant, res­ult­ing in sub­stan­tial energy savings and a remark­able reduc­tion in carbon dioxide (CO2) emis­sions.

By imple­ment­ing Oilon’s solu­tion, the auto­mot­ive industry company expects to save more than 3.5 gigawatt-​hours (GWh) of energy annu­ally, which is more than 75% energy savings. This sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion will not only con­trib­ute to cost savings but also have a pos­it­ive impact on the envir­on­ment. The estim­ated decrease in CO2 emis­sions amounts to a remark­able 884 tons per year, further emphas­iz­ing the project’s envir­on­mental sig­ni­fic­ance.

The fore­run­ner solu­tion con­sists of using a water-​to-water heat pump to produce heating to the process. This heating is gen­er­ated by elec­tri­city and as heat pump pro­duces much more useful thermal energy than its con­sump­tion the solu­tion has 2 straight and rel­ev­ant impacts: energy and CO2 emis­sion savings. Oilon Chill­Heat is taking the energy from the cooling tower, which was being used to waste some resid­ual heat from the company’s chilling process. This heat was com­pletely wasted to the envir­on­ment. Instead of that, now heat pump is taking this heat and using as the main heat source to produce hot water up to 75 Celsius degrees using 75% less energy con­sump­tion. Moreover, now the energy input to Oilon’s CHill­Heat heat pump is the elec­tri­city – which is by the way net zero carbon elec­tri­city as it comes from only trace­able renew­able energy – where before the heating source for this process was a con­ven­tional steam boiler with natural gas.

Repla­cing the natural gas by elec­tri­city, the company can save about 200 Kg of CO2 emis­sions per each megawatt-​hours (MWh) of energy pro­duc­tion and also reduce energy con­sump­tion to this process in about 750 kilowatt-​hours (kWh) per each pro­duced heating megawatt-​hour (MWh). As a result of energy savings, the oper­a­tional cost for this heating process has strongly reduced, gen­er­at­ing a saving higher than 50% on the con­ven­tional heating oper­a­tional costs with steam boiler, leading the solu­tion to a very short ROI (Return­ing of Invest­ment) time.

“Oilon Chill­Heat solu­tion is the unique solu­tion where can gen­er­ate up to 9 or even 10 thermal useful energy units and due to that can align cost reduc­tions and decar­bon­iz­a­tion in the same package, remov­ing the onus from the con­ven­tional heating sus­tain­able pack­ages where do reduce the CO2 emis­sions, but increase the oper­a­tional costs. In this project we are pro­du­cing almost 8 thermal useful ener­gies count­ing cooling and heating using only one elec­trical energy input. Apart from heating saves our solu­tion is also provid­ing rel­ev­ant savings for the cooling process, as Oilon Chill­Heat has absorbed a rel­ev­ant work­load from the cooling tower system, redu­cing the elec­tri­city con­sump­tion and also water evap­or­a­tion losses  on these resources” says Marcus Libanori, Oilon South America leader and also respons­ible for this project since sales process up to startup and com­mis­sion­ing.

The col­lab­or­a­tion between the company located in the most influ­ence town in Brazil by Finnish culture and Oilon serves as a test­a­ment to the power of inter­na­tional part­ner­ships and sus­tain­able innov­a­tion. With Penedo’s Finnish her­it­age and its repu­ta­tion as “Small Finland,” the dis­trict has now a new con­nec­tion with the Finnish culture.

This ground­break­ing ini­ti­at­ive demon­strates global market com­mit­ment to sus­tain­ab­il­ity and aligns with global efforts to combat climate change. The adop­tion of advanced tech­no­lo­gies from com­pan­ies like Oilon show­cases the indus­trial sector determ­in­a­tion, spe­cially the auto­mot­ive one, to embrace cleaner and more energy-​efficient prac­tices.

Being the first auto­mot­ive company to have praised the part­ner­ship with Oilon, high­light­ing the project’s poten­tial to inspire other com­pan­ies in the region and the sector to follow suit and adopt similar envir­on­ment­ally friendly solu­tions. By show­cas­ing the bene­fits of sus­tain­able prac­tices, the company hopes to encour­age a broader shift towards cleaner tech­no­lo­gies and a greener future.

“We first developed con­tacts with cus­tomer’s engin­eer­ing staff to show the huge bene­fits of Chill­heat solu­tions couple of years ago. After the cus­tomer’s tech­nical team visited one of our Chill­Heat units in oper­a­tion since 2019  they better under­stood the high effi­ciency and reli­ab­il­ity of our machine and after that rel­ev­ant visit the pur­chas­ing decision was taken” says Eduardo Kubric, Oilon dealer who has started and leaded this process since 2019.

As the news spreads about this remark­able coin­cid­ence between “Small Finland” and the Finnish company Oilon, Penedo’s repu­ta­tion as a Finnish hub con­tin­ues to grow. The col­lab­or­a­tion serves as a shining example of how global con­nec­tions can lead to local trans­form­a­tions, helping com­munit­ies reduce their carbon foot­print and con­trib­ute to a cleaner planet.

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