Fortum to select Oilon as the heat pump sup­plier for heat recov­ery from a major data center complex

In the future, Oilon heat pumps will recover waste heat from a large data center complex and convert it into emission-​free dis­trict heating for a city and two other com­munit­ies in the Hel­sinki met­ro­pol­itan area. This will be the largest system for recyc­ling waste heat from data centers in the world and the largest deliv­ery con­tract in Oilon’s history.

Microsoft is build­ing a data center complex in the Hel­sinki met­ro­pol­itan area. Fortum, Finland’s leading energy company, will recover the waste heat from the the complex and reuse it for dis­trict heating. This will be the largest project for recyc­ling waste heat from data centers in the world.

Oilon will supply Fortum with the indus­trial heat pumps required by the heat recov­ery system’s two heat pump plants. For Oilon, this is the largest deliv­ery in the company’s history.

“The deliv­ery is valued at approx­im­ately EUR 15 million. This project is a true test­a­ment to our ability to provide large-​scale solu­tions and support our cus­tom­ers in the green trans­ition,” says Oilon’s CEO Tero Tulokas.

Fortum is a fore­run­ner in redu­cing CO2 emis­sions from energy pro­duc­tion and aims at reach­ing carbon neut­ral­ity by 2030. The company con­tinu­ously seeks out and imple­ments the best and most cost-​effective ways to break free from using fossil fuels for heating pro­duc­tion. In this, heat pumps have a vital role to play.

“In the future, dis­trict heating net­works will increas­ingly serve as a plat­form for recyc­ling energy, allow­ing stake­hold­ers to utilize dif­fer­ent heat sources and energy streams. Heat pumps make this all pos­sible. In this project, for example, cooling the data centers will inev­it­ably gen­er­ate waste heat, and this tech­no­logy will allow us to recycle that heat,” says Thomas Ekholm, head of energy solu­tions, Fortum Finland.

Record-​breaking coef­fi­cient of per­form­ance from energy recyc­ling

Fortum’s two heat pump plants will be equipped with a com­bined heating and cooling solu­tion, CHC for short. The heat pumps will provide cooling to the data centers, recover the waste heat gen­er­ated, and trans­fer the recovered energy into the local dis­trict heating network. In other words, the plants produce heating and cooling at the same time.

“By recyc­ling energy streams effect­ively, we can achieve out­stand­ing coef­fi­cient of per­form­ance values. The total COP of the system is 6.6, which means that for each unit of elec­tri­city, the heat pump gen­er­ates 6.6 times as much energy for heating and cooling,” says Jussi Alpua, Oilon’s sales manager respons­ible for indus­trial heat pumps.

Oilon will deliver several S series heat pumps for both heat pump plants. Each unit weighs as much as 10 cars, or around 15,000 kg. Each plant has an output tem­per­at­ure of 85 °C. Together, the two plants will produce nearly 40 MW of dis­trict heating.

The first heat pump plant is cur­rently being built in Kirkkonummi, and the first heat pumps will be delivered to the site in early 2025. The Espoo project will follow a half year later.

At full capa­city, the waste heat recov­ery system will produce enough emission-​free dis­trict heating for 100,000 cus­tom­ers. This accounts for 40 per cent of the 250,000 dis­trict heating cus­tom­ers in Espoo, Kauni­ainen, and Kirkkonummi. For Fortum, this means a per­man­ent CO emis­sion reduc­tion of up to 400,000 tonnes per year. Fur­ther­more, the two heat pump plants will cor­res­pond to more than 1% of the emis­sion reduc­tion required for achiev­ing Finland’s carbon neut­ral­ity target.

Inter­na­tion­ally sig­ni­fic­ant project

Finland’s ambi­tious carbon neut­ral­ity target sets Finland at the fore­front of EU coun­tries. As Finland’s leading energy company, Fortum is now provid­ing a per­suas­ive prac­tical example of how the target can be reached – in a project util­iz­ing Oilon tech­no­logy, no less.

Tra­di­tion­ally, heat pumps have been seen primar­ily as a means of making heat gen­er­a­tion more effi­cient in indus­trial applic­a­tions and energy pro­duc­tion. In recent years, the trend has started to shift towards using heat pumps also as a primary method of energy pro­duc­tion on a wider, indus­trial scale.

“From a tech­no­lo­gical stand­point, the big thing is that we’ve created a power­ful overall solu­tion by util­iz­ing a com­bin­a­tion of several heat pumps. This provides an extremely wide oper­at­ing range, allow­ing the system to respond to process require­ments, espe­cially the varying need for heating and cooling, in a flex­ible and accur­ate way. By con­nect­ing some of the heat pumps in series, we can utilize staged heating and cooling pro­duc­tion. This provides an excel­lent coef­fi­cient of per­form­ance across the entire capa­city range,” says Martti Kukkola, Oilon’s chief busi­ness officer for indus­trial heat pumps and chillers.

Accord­ing to Kukkola, this project is a great example of com­bin­ing two trends: elec­tri­fic­a­tion of energy pro­duc­tion and recyc­ling energy by util­iz­ing waste heat. The project is extremely inter­est­ing not only from a national stand­point but also at the inter­na­tional level.

“Large global com­pan­ies are keeping an close eye on what we do to achieve carbon neut­ral­ity in energy pro­duc­tion here in the north­ern­most reaches of Europe. This ref­er­ence case will open many doors for Oilon in the inter­na­tional market, provid­ing access to increas­ingly large pro­jects. In the future, heat pumps will play a bigger role not only in the global mar­ket­place but also in Oilon’s busi­ness,” Kukkola says.