Oilon CHC tech­no­logy for Kuopion Energia in Finland

The trans­fer­able CHC plant gives Kuopion Energia a flex­ible, environmentally-​friendly oppor­tun­ity to meet cus­tomer’s cooling needs.

Oilon has delivered a trans­fer­able CHC plant – built within a con­tainer – to Kuopion Energia, a major energy company in Eastern Finland. CHC (com­bined heating and cooling) means a heat pump plant that sim­ul­tan­eously pro­duces heating and cooling. At Oilon this tech­no­logy is tried and tested. However, the con­struc­tion of a plant inside a 12-​meter-long insu­lated con­tainer is a novel idea even world­wide. It can be con­veni­ently and quickly moved by truck.

Savi­l­ahti is Kuopio’s regional flag­ship project

By 2030 34,000 people will be living, study­ing and working in the centre of Kuopio, on the shores of Kal­lavesi. Already there are a large number of research centres and tech­no­logy com­pan­ies in the area, and Kuopio Uni­ver­sity Hos­pital and the Uni­ver­sity of Eastern Finland.

During the 2020s there will be a large increase in both the number of stu­dents and jobs, but above all in housing. Homes for 6,000 inhab­it­ants will be built in the area in addi­tion to the current few hundred. The entire project means con­struc­tion of up to half a million square meters of new floor.

This major project involves the con­struc­tion of huge infra­struc­ture in which Kuopion Energia plays a sig­ni­fic­ant role. The city of Kuopio is quite extens­ively covered by dis­trict heating and the new area nat­ur­ally also needs an elec­tri­city and dis­trict heating network.

However, a newer utility is dis­trict cooling, which is becom­ing increas­ingly import­ant. For this purpose Kuopion Energia has built a dis­trict cooling plant on the shores of Savi­l­ahti, which uses cold water pumped from the 32-​meter-deep depres­sion of Kal­lavesi Neu­la­lahti for the cooling needs of prop­er­ties and the hos­pital. The plant was com­pleted in May 2020.

You can’t wait long for a cooling solu­tion

“Our newly com­pleted dis­trict cooling plant will ini­tially serve the hos­pital, uni­ver­sity and other nearby prop­er­ties,” says Petri Tur­ti­ainen, project manager of Kuopion Energia’s Savi­l­ahti dis­trict cooling plant. “The design capa­city of the plant is 30 mega­watts and the invest­ment, which includes the build­ing, equip­ment and piping, is 15 million euros. 2.8 kilo­metres of DN1200 water pipe has been installed at the bottom of the lake to take cooling water. More cooling piping will be built in line with the rest of the con­struc­tion work in the area.”

“On the other side of the motor­way, less than a kilo­metre from the plant, a large KPY Nova­polis office build­ing is just nearing com­ple­tion and needs cooling. Laying the piping there from a dis­trict cooling plant may take another year or two, and of course the cus­tomer can’t wait that long. The options were an old-​fashioned water-​cooling plant or a tem­por­ary – for a year or two – port­able CHC plant.”

Envir­on­mental friend­li­ness favoured the CHC solu­tion because the water-​cooling plant would have con­densed heat to waste. The CHC plant now sup­plies the thermal energy from cooling to a nearby dis­trict heating network, which dis­trib­utes the heat for use by dis­trict heating cus­tom­ers. When the cooling piping is com­pleted, the con­tainer – or the equip­ment it con­tains – can be moved to the next des­tin­a­tion.

Good exper­i­ences and inform­a­tion from col­leagues

“We already have our own good exper­i­ences with Oilon’s CHC tech­no­logy, when Oilon delivered a property-​specific CHC plant to us as a cooling solu­tion for the Kuopio Museum and main library last year. In the case of the museum, the solu­tion was sup­por­ted not only by its envir­on­mental friend­li­ness but also by the fact that it does not require con­denser struc­tures visible outside the build­ing.”

Accord­ing to Tur­ti­ainen, energy com­pan­ies also have a lot of con­nec­tions with each other, exchange of exper­i­ences and joint devel­op­ment work. Kuopion Energia staff visited Hel­sinki to learn about Helen Oy’s exper­i­ences with Oilon’s CHC tech­no­logy and the Tampere Power Plant, whose lake water dis­trict cooling plant uses Oilon’s tech­no­logy.

“Oilon is an excel­lent and easy partner for us,” Tur­ti­ainen con­tin­ues. “They have strong know-​how, tried and tested tech­no­logy and a com­pleted product. We don’t have to think about tech­nical details when we have an expert partner who knows his stuff. To our know­ledge, no one else offers a similar entity.”

“Interest in property-​specific cooling solu­tions has also begun to rise else­where in the city. Invest­ing in a dis­trict cooling network in a com­pleted urban area is a slow and expens­ive solu­tion, but a CHC plant can be built any­where there is a dis­trict heating network nearby.”

Cooling with excel­lent effi­ciency

The trans­fer­able CHC plant delivered to Kuopio is based on two Oilon Chill­Heat P300 indus­trial heat pumps. The plant has a total elec­trical capa­city of 337 kilo­watts (kW), a cooling capa­city of 650 kW and a sim­ul­tan­eous dis­trict heating pro­duc­tion of 970 kW. The overall effi­ciency is COPtot 4.8.

The tem­per­at­ure of the water going to the supply side of the dis­trict heating network is +80°C in Kuopio, and the tem­per­at­ure of the return side of the network is about +45°C. Water at +8°C is sup­plied to cool the prop­erty and the return is about +16°C. The heat pump is very flex­ible in terms of tem­per­at­ures and, if neces­sary, the evap­or­ator can feed even sub-​zero liquid to the place to be cooled, and the con­denser can at best provide heat above +120°C.

“In addi­tion to the heat pumps, the deliv­ery included a surge tank, cir­cu­lat­ing water pumps, an elec­trical and auto­ma­tion centre and a spare liquid cooler placed on top of the con­tainer,” says Jussi Alpua, Oilon’s sales manager for indus­trial heat pumps and water coolers. “The deliv­ery took place on a turnkey basis and included the design, install­a­tion, com­mis­sion­ing, train­ing and future main­ten­ance of the com­pleted plant.”

“We have mainly delivered CHC systems installed dir­ectly on a prop­erty. The con­tainer solu­tion coming to Kuopio is the first of its kind. The size classes of the imple­men­ted pro­jects have been from 30 kW to 1,000 kW by cooling capa­city, and at the same time addi­tional dis­trict heating is pro­duced. For these systems we have a com­pletely ready-​made concept, from the bidding phase to design and oper­a­tion control.”

“Sales of CHC systems is growing stead­ily. There are many factors influ­en­cing growth, but perhaps the most import­ant argu­ment is envir­on­mental issues. Renew­able heat is recovered in dis­trict heating, where it can be used for several cus­tom­ers. So this is where the energy cir­cu­lar economy works really well.”

“Energy com­pan­ies are really inter­ested in new ser­vices and solu­tions. Cooling is one good example of them and many want to include it as a new service in their busi­ness. The CHC solu­tion, installed dir­ectly on the prop­erty or delivered in a con­tainer, lowers this threshold and makes it easy for energy com­pan­ies to provide a safe addi­tional service to their cus­tom­ers.”

Towards a carbon neutral future

“Demand for Oilon Chill­Heat machines has grown strongly both in Finland and inter­na­tion­ally, and CHC solu­tions integ­rated into dis­trict heating and/or cooling net­works are a good example of applic­a­tion poten­tial in industry and real estate,” says Martti Kukkola, chief busi­ness officer for indus­trial heat pumps and chillers at Oilon. “During the last few years, we have already delivered more than twenty CHC solu­tions for dis­trict heating net­works to energy com­pan­ies alone, with one to four Oilon Chill­Heat high-​temperature heat pumps at each site.”

With the Paris Climate Agree­ment, the EU is com­mit­ted to carbon neut­ral­ity by 2050. In Finland, the goal of Sanna Marin’s gov­ern­ment program (2019) is to make Finland carbon-​neutral by 2035 and the first fossil-​free welfare society. Accord­ing to Kukkola, these goals are strongly in Oilon’s strategy.

“Oilon is a tra­di­tional Finnish family company offer­ing energy solu­tions,” Kukkola con­tin­ues. “Of course, we are better known for burners, but indus­trial heat pumps have been part of our oper­a­tions for much more than ten years and they are our fastest growing sector. Oilon offers future energy solu­tions related to low-​emission burning tech­no­logy, as well as highly effi­cient heat pump solu­tions.”