Fortum aims to make its district heating production in the Espoo region carbon neutral by 2030. New heat pump solutions play a key role in reaching this goal, and Insta participates in their implementation. Two heat pump plants that will be built in Espoo and Kirkkonummi are related to a joint project between Fortum and Microsoft: The world’s largest project for recovering data center waste heat is implemented by Fortum and it uses Microsoft’s data centers.
– The heat pump stations take waste heat from Microsoft’s data centers and use it for district heating. Furthermore, they are able to produce district heating independently using air-to-water heat pumps and electric boilers. We participate in the implementation of both heat pump plants. Together with our subsidiary Mattila Porvoo, we will deliver process electricity and instrumentation installations to Fortum Power and Heat Oy in Espoo and Kirkkonummi, says Project Manager Henrikki Sillanpää for Insta’s installation business.
Insta’s work in the projects begins in December 2024. The projects will employ up to 30 people. The construction of both heat pump plants will be completed by the end of 2025. The plants are part of Espoo Clean Heat – a joint program by Fortum and the City of Espoo.
Insta supports the clean transition and strengthens its customers’ competitive advantage with solutions that create benefits in terms of the production, distribution, and consumption of energy while reducing the environmental impacts. Insta is one of the leading suppliers of electrical and instrumentation installations in the Nordic countries. It has participated in various projects globally since the 1960s. Furthermore, Insta participated in the I&C modernization of Fortum’s power plant in Loviisa, and the companies have jointly developed secure tools that boost collaboration for use in nuclear power projects.
The data centers cover some 40% of district heating customers’ needs
The construction of the Espoo heat pump station started at the turn of the year in Hepokorpi, near Ring III, whereas work on the other heat pump station in Kolabacken, Kirkkonummi, started already in September 2023. Microsoft’s data centers will be built next to the heat pump plants.
The plants will feature air-to-water heat pumps for heat recovery from air, heat pumps for recovering data center waste heat, and two 50 MW electric boilers for raising the temperature of the district heating water. The electric boilers will also be used for utilizing the fluctuations in the price of electricity. The Kolabacken plant will also have an 800 MWh thermal energy storage.
Fortum will connect the Hepokorpi and Kolabacken heat pump plants to the district heating network by constructing a 15 km expansion of the district heating piping.
At first, in the heating season 2025–2026, the plants will independently generate district heat by extracting it from the surrounding air. However, the data centers will eventually cover approximately 40% of the needs of the 250,000 district heating users in the area.
Further information:
Henrikki Sillanpää
Project Manager
Installation
Insta Automation
Tampere
firstname.lastname (at) insta.fi
