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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