Fortum openes combined heat and power plant in Klaipeda, Lithuania

Fortum, the Finnish engineering company, has opened the first waste-to-energy combined heat and power plan in the Baltic region.

The Nordic Investment Bank has helped finance the CHP, in Klaipeda, Lithuania, with a €70m loan.

The plant uses biomass as well as municipal and industrial waste as fuels to provide district heating to residents and businesses in Klaipeda and generates electricity for the Lithuanian power grid.

The use of sorted waste as fuel in heat and power generation is a sustainable solution for urban area and is offering a cost-effiective answer to energy and waste management needs.

The plant has the capacity to incinerate 230,000 tonnes of waste and biomass a year and will produce approximately 380 GWh of heat and 120 GWh of electricity a year, which covers approximately 40 per cent of Klaipeda's district heating demand.

The power plant will replace old natural gas-fired heat production in Klaipeda and reduce CO2 emissions by about 100,000 tonnes per annum.