Working together towards a carbon neutral future, the energy company Gasum has built a biogas plant at Stora Enso’s Nymölla paper mill in Sweden. The construction has now been finalised and the biogas plant is ready to produce biogas.

“Sustainable operations and resource efficiency are at the core of our business. This project is a good example of how we are able to achieve these goals and help our customers meet their sustainability targets by using our products. We are always trying to find the most innovative, sustainable solutions which calls for partnering with like-minded companies such as Gasum. After three years working on this project, we are excited to see the plant officially open at Nymölla, one of our key sites,” says Kati ter Horst, Executive Vice President, Stora Enso’s Paper division.

“The driving force behind this pioneering joint venture was the mutual interest in reducing carbon dioxide emissions and creating something valuable out of waste. The result is a plant that can produce 75–80 GWh of liquefied biogas on a yearly basis, enough to supply the annual fuel consumption of up to 200 trucks. The demand for cleaner fuels and transport is huge; the construction and opening of the plant will enable biogas to reach the industrial scale required to meet the needs of maritime, heavy transport and other industry actors looking to reduce their carbon footprint,” says Johanna Lamminen, Chief Executive Officer at Gasum.

A significant source of renewable fuel for use in heavy-duty vehicles, LBG reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90 per cent, in addition other emissions such as sulphur dioxine and particulate emissions are eliminated when compared to fossil fuels. By reusing the process water generated during the paper manufacturing process and extracting the organic matter, the two companies are moving towards a circular economy.

A unique joint effort with mutual benefits

The first collaboration of its kind in Sweden, the joint effort kicked off in December 2017 after the Swedish subsidiary of Gasum announced that it had been awarded a state grant as part of the Climate Leap (Klimatklivet) programme to produce, upgrade, and liquefy biogas from mill process water. That support was supplemented by both Gasum and Stora Enso investments.

The partnership serves both companies in unique ways. Gasum will be able to offer the LBG at its gas filling stations for HDVs in the Nordics as demand for low-emission traffic increases.

Stora Enso will likewise benefit from the recycling of process water at the Nymölla mill. With an annual production capacity of 340,000 tonnes of pulp and 485,000 tonnes of woodfree uncoated (WFU) paper for office use, the mill is able to turn its residue into a renewable source of energy. Gasum converts the mill’s process water by looping it through the biogas reactors and breaking down the organic content to produce biogas. This process reduces the treatment need in the process water facility and contributes to Stora Enso’s commitment to more sustainable operations.