The Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (YTV) is planning the construction that would turn biological waste generated by the Helsinki region into gas fuel.
Currently, a composting plant set up at the Ämmässuo landfill in Espoo is turning biowaste into compost, but process involving aerobic decomposition fails to utilise the potential energy benefits.
Plans are for a separate plant in which anaerobic decomposition would be used, generating biogas that can be collected and burned for energy.
Waste management director Petri Kuovo says that such a plant could be ready in 2013. A gas-fired power plant is to be operational at the site already next summer. In the initial stages it will use gas generated from mixed waste.
The current composting plant was set up at Ämmässuo nearly three years ago, and it has already proven to be too small to handle all of the sorted biological waste coming from the Helsinki region (Helsinki, Vantaa, Espoo and Kauniainen) as well as nearby Kirkkonummi.
As a result, some of the biowaste has been taken away to Forssa where an anaerobic decomposition plant is operational, and some of it has had to be dumped in a landfill with mixed waste.
