Large heat pumps arrive in Helsinki

Helen is currently building a new heating and cooling plant in the cooling centre located under the Esplanade Park. The plant consists of two large heat pumps that produce cooling and heat. These pumps will help to utilise excess heat even more efficiently than before. The heating and cooling plant will be commissioned in spring 2018.

The heat pumps transported by sea from the factory in Nantes in France will arrive at the Vuosaari Harbour in three consignments one week apart. The first consignment is estimated to arrive at Vuosaari on Wednesday, and transportation of the heat pump parts is estimated to start on the morning of Thursday, 14 September. There will be one or two transport operations on each day. They will take place on weekdays between 14 and 29 September 2017.

When the transport vehicles drive into and out of the transport tunnel of the cooling centre, it will be necessary to stop the traffic momentarily at the junction of Laivurinrinne and Merimiehenkatu.

The heat pumps to be installed under the Esplanade Park consist of large sections, with the largest weighing almost 27,000 kilos. In the cavern, the sections will be lifted off the transport vehicles and then moved and installed in place on the bedding. One assembled heat pump entity is about 11 metres long, 6 metres wide and 5 metres high, with a total weight of over 98,100 kilos.

Carbon dioxide emissions will fall

The new heating and cooling plant will reduce Helen’s carbon dioxide emissions by about 20,000 tonnes per year.

– Helen is on the way to climate neutrality, and the heat pump investment is one of the measures towards climate neutral production. The Esplanade heat pumps will meet the growing need for district cooling in Helsinki. In addition to district cooling, we will also use the pumps for producing heat and that way compensate the use of fossil fuels, says Director Heikki Hapuli of Helen Ltd.

Currently, over 60 per cent of district cooling in Helsinki is produced in the Katri Vala heating and cooling plant, which is the world’s largest plant producing district heat and district cooling. With district cooling, heat produced by the sun, machinery and equipment, and people is recovered from homes and properties in Helsinki.

Facts:

• Two new heat pumps: 2 x 7.5 MW of cooling and 2 x 11 MW of heat.
• The heat pumps will increase the total cooling output of the Esplanade cooling centre to 55 MW (new heat pumps 15 MW and the existing cooling accumulator 40 MW).
• One heat pump entity is about 11 metres long, 6 metres wide 5 metres high.
• The heat pumps are supplied by Johnson Controls Finland Oy.
• The new heating and cooling plant will be ready for production use in spring 2018.
• The value of the total investment is over EUR 10 million.
• The district cooling system in Helsinki is the third largest in Europe, and it is the most rapidly growing cooling system in Europe.