The Finnish company Stora Enso will provide the city of Karlsruhe (Germany) a renewable, biomass-based heating district by the end of 2022.

Photo credits: Philipp Tittel-Mosser from Pexels

Stora Enso’s Maxau Mill is located on the Rhine River near Karlsruhe in southwest Germany – the paper mill is considered a key pillar in the company’s Uncoated Magazine Paper (SC) product segment.  According to Stora Enso, “the two paper machines (in the mill) produce approx. 530kt of uncoated magazine papers per year.”

Stora Enso announced that Maxau Mill will supply the district of Karlsruhe city a renewable and biomass-based heating. A two-kilometre connection pipeline is expected to be built in late 2020 – aiming for completion by the end of 2022.

The pipeline will transfer the heat from Stora Enso’s Maxau Mill to an existing pipeline, which is linked to Karlsruhe’s municipal heating grid. This project aims at reducing the energy costs and securing the long-term cost effectiveness of the paper mill. Moreover, this proposal contributes to Stora Enso’s carbon-neutral roadmap and science-based targets through higher share of biomass and higher efficiency (> 50 000t CO₂ savings per year).

As stated by the company, "As a leading renewable materials company with access to carbon-neutral biomass we are in a unique position to combat global warming". The Finnish company's ambition is to drive down fossil fuel use, in order to get as close to zero as possible within the decade. 

The Maxau Mill uses biomass-based fuel – more than 80%. Moreover, Stora Enso’s paper mill will include a new steam turbine, which is supposed to increase the potential of combined heat and power production – leading to an annual decrease of 10,000 CO₂ tonnes. Joachim Grünewald, Director at Maxau Mill, states “We are happy to be part of this extensive environmental project and in this way, boost the ecological sustainability of our processes even further in the future.”