88.5 M€ of NER 300 programme for Kaidi biorefinery in Finland
Last February, the Blog reported about the
plans of the renewable energy company Kaidi to
build a €1 billion cutting-edge biodiesel plant in Finland (see the post
to know more information about the planned facility). At that time, Finish
media named the project as the biggest Chinese investment in Finland to date.
The final investment decision will be made by
the end of this year. In the meantime, a good new for the future progress of
the project has just been announced
by the company. The European Commission has decided to grant 88.5 M€ of NER 300
investment subsidies for this plant to be built in Ajos (Kemi). The subsidy,
which is directed towards producers of renewable energy, was initially granted
in 2012 for the realization of a biofuel refinery planned by Vapo that halted
the project in 2014. According to the words of Pekka Koponen (CEO of Kaidi
Finland), the EC decision strengthens Kaidi’s opportunities to advance the
project significantly.
In addition to hundreds of subcontracting jobs,
the biorefinery would create 150 full-time positions at the site once
operational. Overall, the construction process will bring about an additional
4,000 man-years of work. Discussions with subcontractors and other stakeholders
are ongoing.
Figure 1. The Kemi biorefinery in numbers (extracted
from the Kaidi web page)
NER 300
is one of the world's largest funding programmes for innovative low-carbon
energy demonstration projects. The programme is conceived as a catalyst for the
demonstration of environmentally safe carbon capture and storage (CCS) and
innovative renewable energy (RES) technologies on a commercial scale within the
European Union.