Helsinki will continue to rely on coal as an energy source even in the future. The city’s freshly prepared energy political review suggests that the possibility of using coal in the Helsinki Energy communal heating facilities be maintained.
Should the city council endorse the account, this would mean a change in the Finnish capital’s energy policy.
In the sustainable development directive accepted by Helsinki in 2002, it was agreed that the use of coal would only be continued until the end of the service life of the present plants.
More than half of Helsinki’s district heating and over a quarter of the city’s electricity is currently produced in facilities using coal.
The time span of the account produced by civil servants is around ten years. The principal thread of the document is that Helsinki will actively take part in climate change prevention and will profile itself as a climate-friendly city.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) has urged Helsinki to give up the use of coal in favour of wood-based energy sources.
The account also assesses the consequences of transforming the Hanasaari coal power plant into one that uses wood chip. The change would reduce the capital’s carbon dioxide emissions by a quarter.
The modification of the plant would cost EUR 300 million. The plant would then use 34,000 full trailer loads of wood chip per year.
Hanasaari would require all the available wood chip within a 250-kilometre radius from the capital, and even then all the other users would have to give up using wood chip.
The energy-political account is currently with the city government. The city council will accept it on January 23rd.
