A biomass combined heat and power plant has successfully started up at UPM’s Caledonian paper mill, allowing CO2 emissions to be reduced by 75,000 tonnes.
The plant, which went operational one month ahead of schedule, will supply half of the mill’s electricity needs and all its process steam requirements.
It will make a significant contribution to the Scottish government’s target to have 50% of all energy consumed from renewable sources by 2020.
Metso Power supplied the boiler technology for the £60m project, with around 400,000 tonnes of biomass – various types of wood – being used per year.
In 2007, UPM installed a biomass boiler at its Shotton mill in North Wales, with a target of cutting carbon emissions by 30,000 tonnes annually.
