The city of Oslo must be happy. It managed to bail out Finnish energy giant Fortum of its 50 percent share in the Klemetsrud Energy Recovery Plant, with some outside help. The other half is owned by the municipality. Klemetsrud is essential in reaching the promised 95 percent reduction in CO2 emissions in Oslo by 2030. A carbon capture addition to the current plant was about to take 15 percent of that.
Featured photo: Waste-to-energy plant in Oslo Klemetsrud (Photo by Fortum)
Buying Fortum out was not cheap, more than 1 billion euros (NOK 10 billion) had to be paid. After the sale has been okayed by anti-trust authorities, expected before the summer, municipal owned Hafslund Eco will take 60 percent (including the 50 percent Oslo owned itself), while Infranode from Norway and HitecVision from Sweden will have 20 percent each.
Carbon Capture
The energy recovery plant at Klemetsrud is Norway’s largest and processed approximately 315,000 tonnes of residual and industrial waste last year. The heat produced provided warm homes to 200,000 people in Oslo, more than a quarter of the total population of the capital. The world’s first carbon capture plant of its kind and size is planned to be build on the site, which gives work to 200 people.
Fortum stepped into the project in 2017, but building the carbon capture part has been plagued by the hunt for financial means. Norway’s government wants to contribute with about EUR 310 million, but wants Oslo to find the other investors itself. Until now, without success. With new control and external investors, Oslo hopes to make it.
District heating
The waste-to-energy plant in Oslo Klemetsrud produced 1.8 Twh of district heating and 0.1 Twh of electricity in 2021.
Fortum has been consolidating and realigning its business activities in the past years. For example, it also sold its district heating activities in Joensuu and Järvenpää in Finland in 2020, and in the Baltic states in 2021. If all goes well, Fortum’s sale of Klemetsrud will be finalized in the second half of this year. | © 2022 Marcel Burger, nordicreporter.com