According to the preliminary plan, the whole project, planned in Laanila industrial area, would include an electrolysis plant with a capacity of up to 100 MW, a carbon capture plant, a hydrogen and carbon dioxide storage, and a further processing plant whose final product could be methane or methanol.
The products created by the hydrogen plant could be used to replace fossil fuels in road, maritime and air transport. According to the preliminary estimate, approximately 200–400 GWh of heat energy per year would be created as a by-product, which could be transferred to the district heating network, while the oxygen could be recovered for industrial use.
“The heat energy gained would correspond to approximately 10–30% of Oulu’s annual district heating demand. This would enable us to produce heat in an environmentally friendly manner and improve the competitiveness of district heating,” said Kimmo Alatulkkila, development director at Oulu Energy.
In addition, the project aims to investigate the possibilities of recovering the biogenic flue gases from local industry and power plants in the further processing of hydrogen.
The project development phase, now being launched, is led by P2X Solutions Ltd, a Finnish pioneer in green hydrogen and power-to-x technology. The company is currently constructing Finland’s first industrial-scale green hydrogen and synthetic methane production plant in Harjavalta in western Finland.
Herkko Plit, CEO of P2X Solutions, said: “Oulu Energy is a pioneer in sustainable energy production in northern Finland. It is great to be able to advance a joint project that shows that green hydrogen can also be a solution for cutting emissions from heat production. When completed, the capacity of the Oulu hydrogen plant would be up to 100 megawatts, which makes it very significant also on the scale of Finland. For P2X Solutions, the project would mean a significant scaling up of operations from our facilities in Harjavalta and Joensuu.”
