Good practice of BUUF partners

Sustainable use of energy and resources is one of the important issues of the ongoing project "Baltic University Urban Forum (BUUF)". The project is coordinated by a steering group consisting of Baltic University Programme, Royal Institute of Technology, department of Urban Studies, Union of the Baltic Cities and 20 cities from 9 countries around the Baltic Sea.

Among the BUUF partners, cities from Sweden, such as Uppsala, Örebro, Norrtälje and Enköping, show the best practices in utilizing a renewable source of energy for electricity and heating. In these cities, the large amount of electricity (about 40-60 %) and heating energy (about 60-80 %) are originated from renewable sources. As a source of renewable energy is mainly used biofuel - sawdust, peat, wood chips, waste and plant biomass. A good example of utilization of plant biomass as biofuel was demonstrated by Ehköping, where a project was initiated to find out a possibility to make willow beneficial both for farmers and for Energy Company. The goal of the project was to establish 1.000 ha of willow in the region within ten years. With the existing plantations, it would supply the Combined Heat and Power plant with about 30% of the fuel consumption.

Another example of renewable energy source is utilization of waste for producing biogas. Two BUUF partner cities, Örebro and Uppsala, have reported their experience on this issue. In Örebro, all non-composted solid waste is incinerated and used for district heating. In addition, there are waste water treatment plant and municipal landfill in Örebro that produce 13 GWh and 18 GWh of biogas per year, respectively. The biogas is used for heating and steam production at a hospital and food production. In Uppsala, a biogas project was initiated in 1994, and a biogas plant was built nearby in 1996. The aim of the project was to take care of the different types of organic waste and to use waste as energy source. Implementation of the project was successful and, yearly, 50.000 tons of manure and organic waste received from industries, shops, restaurants are used as fuel.

Swedish BUUF partners have demonstrated a positive experience in such challenging task as extensive use of renewable source of energy.