Europe’s northernmost biogas station

The network of biogas filling stations is growing and also moving further and further north: The Scandinavian energy supplier Gasum is currently building a biogas and bio-LNG/LBG filling station in the northern Finnish town of Keminmaa, known for its gigantic ice hotel.

So far, the filling station in Luleå has been the northernmost option for filling up with biogas and bio-LNG/LBG. Soon, the energy company Gasum will offer sustainable fuel for gas-powered vehicles even further north. Source: Gasum

It is no secret that low emissions, moderate costs and, above all, a good network of filling stations and the high biogas content encourage many Scandinavian companies to use gas for transport. Until now, the northernmost filling station for liquefied biogas was in Luleå, Sweden. Ice hockey fans may know this city for the Luleå HF, which has also played at the Spengler Cup in Davos, or for the Unesco World Heritage site Gammelstad. This church village around the imposing 13th-century stone church with around 400 huts once served as a place for the inhabitants of the widely scattered parish to spend the night when they came to Luleå especially for church services in the icy and dark winters.

A lorry delivers biogenic residues for a Gasum biogas plant. Source: Gasum

Now, however, the Scandinavian energy company Gasum has started building a new LBG filling station in the municipality of Keminmaa in northern Finland. After about six months of construction, LNG-powered vehicles should be able to draw new energy for almost CO2-neutral transport there from the end of 2023 at the northernmost filling station for liquefied biogas (LBG/Bio-LNG) in the whole of Europe. The filling station in Keminmaa will also offer both liquefied and compressed biogas to serve heavy-duty transport and also CNG-powered cars. This means that guests at the famous Snow Castle – complete with restaurant, hotel, chapel and sauna – will now be able to fill up their CNG vehicles in the depths of the Finnish winter before travelling on.

«Gasum wants to expand its filling station network even further north and make transport with biogas and driving with gas possible in Lapland. The filling station in Keminmaa will serve long-distance transport in the north and enable more and more logistics service providers to switch to biogas transport,» explains Juho Kurra, Business Manager for Transport Finland at Gasum. The new biogas and bio-LNG station is located in the immediate vicinity of a motorway interchange, making it ideal for serving traffic towards Rovaniemi and Tornio, as well as traffic to Sweden.

The energy provider Gasum is deliberately continuously expanding the production and filling station network for biogas and also bio-LNG/LBG. Source: Gasum

«Biogas already accounts for almost the entire share of gas sold by Gasum as transport fuel for all vehicle segments in Finland,» Kurra adds. The utility’s strategic goal is to bring seven terawatt hours of renewable gas to market annually by 2027, which would allow Gasum customers to realise annual savings of 1.8 million tonnes of CO2. Incidentally, according to NGVA Europe, there are currently 4180 ways to fill up with CNG or biogas across Europe, and in addition there are already 668 filling stations for LNG or LBG/Bio-LNG, which contribute a lot to making heavy transport more sustainable.

Whether in the transport sector or also in shipping, LNG is becoming increasingly popular as a fuel. The big advantage of LNG is that it can easily be supplemented or replaced with sustainable bio-LNG/LBG. Source: Gasum

In order to be able to supply more and more sustainable gas – whether compressed or liquefied – to this impressive number of petrol pumps, there are also more and more production plants. As of April 2023, the European Biogas Association (EBA) and Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) estimate a total of 1322 plants producing biogas in Europe. This is a rapid increase, as there were only 483 plants in 2018.

Logically, this is also reflected in the amount of biogas produced. «Biogas production has experienced remarkable growth over the last ten years,» says , head of EBA. “This is a strong signal for the industry’s efforts to increase production while pushing for further acceleration to reach the European Commission’s proposed target of 35 billion cubic metres by 2030 in the REPowerEU plan.” Incidentally, an overview of where these plants can be found is provided by the recently renewed fourth edition of the EBA and EIG biogas map. (jas, 20 June 2023)

Source: EBA/GIE