Helsingin Energia - Annual Report 2008

HelenCooling

District cooling showed vigorous growth

The district cooling business grew vigorously in the review year. 34 new customer sites were connected to the district cooling net. Their total connected cooling load was 26 MW. At the end of the year, the customer sites numbered 108 and their total connected cooling load was 78 MW. The turnover of HelenCooling grew by more than 80%, amounting to approx. EUR 10 million. The result was slightly better than forecast. The sales volume of cooling energy was approx. 40 GWh.

Among the buildings connected to the district cooling net were, e.g., the Hotel Aleksanteri, the Stockmann department store, the State Treasury, the administration building of the University of Helsinki, and the Luotsi apartment buildings in the Katajanokka district. The district cooling system in Helsinki is one of the fastest expanding cooling systems in Europe. The district cooling operations will grow vigorously also in the next few years.

Eco-efficient cooling

In environmental terms, district cooling is an incomparable way of cooling the indoor air of buildings. It is also suitable for cooling various equipment bays and processes. The energy-efficiency of Helsingin Energia's district cooling system is more than five times better than that of building-specific cooling systems. The emissions of district cooling are also significantly lower than those of building-specific cooling. The total annual carbon dioxide emissions caused by the cooling of buildings that were connected to the district cooling system in 2008 decrease by more than 5,000 tonnes.

The structure of Helsingin Energia's district cooling production is diversified, and no further investments were made in it in the review year. Cooling energy is produced from cool sea water by means of heat exchangers whenever possible. In the summer, when the temperature of sea water rises, district cooling is produced by the heat pumps of the Katri Vala heating and cooling plant and by the Salmisaari absorption plants.

Distribution network expanded to new areas

The district cooling system is concentrated in Helsinki city centre. The distribution system was primarily expanded in existing customer areas. Among the new areas were the Katajanokka and Länsi-Pasila districts. A total of 6 km of a new distribution network was constructed during the operating year. By the end of the year, the total length of the network was 32 km, of which about one third has been constructed in multi-utility tunnels.

The distribution network was constructed under demanding circumstances in the most central areas in Helsinki. Special attention was paid to the management of work sites and providing information about the work sites. Inconvenience caused to traffic, commerce and the residents of the areas concerned was minimised by speeding up the implementation schedule, by carrying out more construction work at night than before and by implementing work sites in collaboration with other actors. When the district cooling network was being constructed, connections were built to as many real estates in the area as possible, due to which the number of work sites will fall in the next few years.