The Sandvik plant
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The Sandvik plant is Växjö Energi's plant for producing electricity and district heating. All district heating and 25-30% of all the electricity needed by Växjö Energi's customers is produced in the Sandvik plant.
The cogeneration block, Sandvik II, is exclusively run on biomass fuel. Biomass is part of nature's own cycle. No surplus of carbon dioxide arise from the burning of wood products since it is absorbed by the forest.
The wood ash produced by burning biomass, which contains nutrients and trace elements, will be returned to the forest in order for the natural life cycle to be completed.
The district heating network in Växjö was built up in the |
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beginning of the 1970's and did then replace many small boilers and heating plants. When the Sandvik plant was taken into use in 1974 it was run solely on oil. The plant was converted to biomass fuel in 1980 and 1983. This was done partly because of economic reasons as well as for vulnerability reasons. From 1997 onwards the share of biomass fuels being used is over 95%.
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More heat means more electricity
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Växjö Energi has been working continuously to replace electricity- and oil-based heating with district heating in Växjö. In doing so, the demand basis for heating has grown and now gives the possibility to produce more electricity in Sandvik II.
The new boiler has an effect of 104 MW, 66 MW goes to heating. The generator has an effect of 38 MW for electricity. The more district heat that is being used, the more electricity can be produced. However, it is not profitable to only produce electricity and to cool away the heat. Since the Sandvik plant consists of many units that can be run on several types of fuel, we can produce the amount of electricity that is requested in the most economical and environmentally friendly way. Moreover, Sandvik II is prepared for the use of carburated biomass fuel in the future. Such an extension could give an additional 15-25 MW of electricity.
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Facts about the Sandvik II plant
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- Run solely on renewable biomass fuels
- High efficiency
- High output of electricity compared to delivered amount of district heating
- A good environmental record
- The Sandvik plant produced, during year 2003, around 161 GWh of electricity and 519 GWh of district heating. If the Sandvik plant would have been run solely on oil this corresponds to a use of around 70 000 m3.
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