SCA taking the lead in green energy

A €43.5 million investment in a co-operation with Sundsvall Energi AB and a joint venture on wind power with E.ON are two of the latest sustainable initiatives being undertaken by hygienic disposables leader SCA.

The first will enable SCA to increase its deliveries of energy to the heating grid the Sundsvall region in Sweden, with the investment covering the rebuilding of two boilers, a new facility for handling and grinding wood pellets and equipment for cleaning flue gases at the company’s Ortviken paper mill. Its Östrand pulp plant will also be connected to Sundsvall’s district heating grid.

The Ortviken paper mill will then have the capacity to deliver up to 300 GWh per year based on wood pellets from SCA’s BioNorr facility in Härnösand and oil consumption in Sundsvall will be reduced by a total of 25,000 cubic metres annually as a result. For Ortviken, the annual decrease in oil consumption will be 4,500 cubic metres, treducing the mill’s already low carbon footprint by about 40%.

The joint venture agreement with E.ON, meanwhile, will result in approximately 270 new wind power stations with a total energy production of more than 2 TWh annually becoming operational by 2016 or 2017, corresponding to the electricity required for warming 100,000 Swedish households.