Valmet Power has constructed the world first integrated bio-oil plant to Fortum at Joensuu, Finland. Initial use for the bio-oil is in district heat boilers. The commissioning of the plant took place autumn 2013. The design capacity of the plant is 50 000 tons of bio-oil. Feedstock is collected within 50 km radius from the plant and it is mainly forest residues. Heat for pyrolysis reactions is recovered from hot boiler sand, which together with pyrolysis residues char and non-condensable gases is returned to the boiler. Bio-oil is condensed, and stored at site much like fuel oil in storage vessels. Initially bio-oil will be transported to user sites with tank trucks. The research work at VTT on fast pyrolysis has been supporting development of this concept. Analytical methods for both characterisation the whole oil and determining its fuel oil quality have been developed. Norms and standards have been assessed. Standardisation work under CEN and REACH registration in Europe are ongoing under lead of Fortum Power and Heat.

Proceedings of the 22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 23-26 June 2014, Hamburg, Germany, pp. 1654-1656