Sandviksverket in Växjo is a combined power and heating plant, producing heat to the city’s district heating system and power to the electricity market
Supply of green energy to the city of Växjö
The plant is 98 percent fuelled with bark, shavings, wood chips and a small amount peat. Consequently its energy production has very little environmental impact. In fact emissions of carbon dioxide are reduced by 249,000 metric tons annually by leaving out the fossil fuels.
The plant consists of a combined heat and power unit and a hot water unit, both fuelled with bio fuel. For back-up and top-load purposes, there is also a combined heat and power unit and several hot water units, fuelled with oil.
Next to the plant there is an accumulator tank storing heat (warm water). It enables the combined heat and power plant to run on a more even load, meaning it compensates for variations or flucturations in the production. The storage also reduces the need of using oil-fuelled back-up units during periods of high demand of heat. Thus, it helps improving the environmental performance even further.
The production at Sandviksverket generates one third electricity and two thirds of heat. The production at Sandviksverket meets approx. 40 percent of the electricity demand and approx. 80 heat demand from the city of Växjö.
Technical facts
Main units
– Combined heat and power (Sandvik 2)
65 MW heat and 35 MW electricity
– Hot water
25 MW
Reserve and top load units
– Combined heat and power (Sandvik 1)
50 MW heat and 20 MW electricity
– Hot water
110 MW heat
Fuel mix (2008)
– Wood-based bio fuels 92.1 %
– Peat 6.6 %
– Oil 1.3 %
Carbon dioxide emission
Oil: 3.6 g/kWh produced energy
Peat: 26,1 g/kWh produced energy
Oil + Peat: 29,7 g/kWh produced energy
