Vaasa Housing Fair will introduce new technologies: heat from seabed sediments and former landfill site

print this

At this summer’s Finnish Housing Fair taking place in the coastal city of Vaasa in July-August, several new energy innovations will be introduced.
      Heat for the exhibition area will be conveyed from the adjacent seabed, while combustion gases from a nearby landscaped former landfill site are to be used to produce electricity and additional heat.
      The electricity and heat needed in the area will be produced more or less on site.
      Completely new technologies will be introduced. However, the diminutive New Energy Building shaded by birches at a corner of the Flying Squirrel Park will be the only visible structure referring to the area’s innovative energy self-sufficiency.
     
Finding heat in the seabed sediments outside the fair area took even the Geological Survey of Finland by surprise.
      The average temperature of the sediment at a depth of a couple of metres was measured at 8-9°C, even in the middle of winter. This was twice as high compared with sediments on dry land.
      The seabed sediment stores the sun’s warmth efficiently, thanks to its composition and the body of water on top of it.
      Apart from the seabed sediment, other suitable energy sources for a low-energy system, such as the one used at the housing fair area, would be ground, water, and bedrock heat, or return water of a district heating network. In the summer, the devised system can be used conversely to cool down buildings.
     
From the former Suvilahti rubbish dump biogas, most of which is methane, will also be conveyed into the Energy Building. With micro-turbine technology, some 30 per cent of the gas’s energy content can be converted into electricity and 60 per cent into heat. A new filtration system will minimise emissions.
      The used technology developed by the Finnish firm Wärtsilä is based on the so-called SOFC (solid oxide fuel cell) system.
      "Our power plant will produce both electricity and heating for the fair site’s needs at very high efficiency. The emissions from a biogas-fuelled fuel cell are very low, around a thousandth of the emissions of cars, and there will be no particle emissions", Wärtsilä President Juha Kytölä enthuses.
      According to Kytölä, the fuel cell technology is one of the most promising future energy production methods. The housing fair area’s power plant is the first one of its kind in the world. The technology will enter into commercial production after the year 2010.


Links:
  Vaasa Housing Fair 11.7.–10.8.2008
  The Finnish Housing Fair Co-operative Organisation
  Wärtsilä Press Release

Helsingin Sanomat