Multi-million investments provide warmth in Sotkamo

Sotkamo is experiencing a phase of unprecedented growth. For the Vuokatti area, which provides sport and recreational services, investments in tourism amounting to roughly 200 million euro are planned. Among other things new hotels and holiday homes will be built in the area.

Industrial jobs in the municipality are also showing a strong increase. New jobs will be delivered in particular by the Talvivaara mine project, which is planned to provide work for about 400 people. Another recent addition in Vuokatti is the Snowpolis technology park completed in 2005, which brings together specialists in wellness, sports and winter technology.

”We are aiming for a thousand new jobs over the next five years. We’ve tried to bring attractive narrow-focus spearheads to the municipality”, underlines Jari Tolonen, Mayor of Sotkamo.

Mayor Jari Tolonen says the municipality has opened bottlenecks and activated investors and landowners in order to accelerate investments in tourism and boost the number of jobs in Sotkamo.

Vapo’s power plant manager Niilo Kiiskilä (left) and Pentti Piirainen, who heads Sotkamo’s Technical Services department, pictured in front of the Sotkamo power plant, where heat and electricity are produced using peat and wood.

Value of local solutions understood

The development occurring in Sotkamo has entailed major investments in heat production, too. In 2002 the Municipality of Sotkamo and Vapo indeed signed a cooperation agreement, under the terms of which the municipality’s complete district heating activity was outsourced to Vapo.

”A great deal of the municipality’s money would have been tied up if we had handled the distribution of heat ourselves. That was precisely what we wanted to avoid”, Tolonen continues.

In consequence the decision was taken to make an agreement with Vapo. There is general satisfaction locally with the solution and the fact that locally sourced fuels are in use. Of the fuel used by the power plant in Sotkamo 70% is peat and 20% wood. Oil accounts for just 10% or so of the fuel consumed.

”In Sotkamo we use an extremely small quantity of oil as a support fuel”, confirms Niilo Kiiskilä, who manages Vapo’s Sotkamo power plant.

The local approach is also enhanced by the 700 kilowatt pellet-fired boiler at the Vuokatti heating centre and the 300 kilowatt pellet-fired boiler at the former school of domestic science.

”Many environmentally-aware young people move to Vuokatti – people who place a great deal of faith in the value of domestic solutions. Indigenous fuels have a positive image value”, Tolonen believes.

At the Sotkamo power plant the combined capacity of the boilers is 40 megawatts. In addition the boilers in Vuokatti can produce 4.5 megawatts. One significant investment was linking the centre of Sotkamo and Vuokatti in 2003, which involved running approximately seven kilometres of pipework.

New plant planned

The demand for heat is set to increase in years to come, since among other things expansions plans have been drawn up for the area occupied by the sports institute at Vuokatti. The number of residential dwellings in the municipality is also expected to rise.

If growth continues as planned Sotkamo will soon need more heat production capacity. Vapo and the municipality have discussed construction of a new heating plant in 2010. This new plant, too, would burn wood and peat.