PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE- A competition for organisations in the Baltic Sea Region and the Nordic countries

ECO2 is a Finnish strategic program that implements the climate commitments of the city, develops new city planning methods for low-carbon city development and facilitates growth in sustainable busi-ness. The ECO2 programme coordinates and initiates projects in cooperation with the private sector, academia and the civil society organisations. The concept offers clearly defined concrete goals. The concept is easily understandable to the various interest groups.

Swedish Snowpower AB and the Country Council of Västernorrland’s snow cooling offers a solution for cooling down during the warm seasons using energy that has been stored during winter. In Sunds-vall, Sweden, this method is used to cool down the Västernorrland hospital. During winter you collect snow to a pit and at springtime you insulate it with a layer of wooden chips. Melt water is pumped fil-tered to the cooling load and then re-circulated to the snow pit and mixed with new melt water. The cooling load in Sundsvall is about 2500 kWcooling with a maximum capacity of 3000 MWhcooling. The plant started year 2000 and has not stopped since. The electricity consumption has decreased by more than 90 %. This solution can be taken into use at any place where you have four seasons.

The special distinction receiver Sybimar Oy is a Finnish company. The solution they provide is a closed circulation. This solution makes the public and private sector co-operate and creates new jobs. The sys-tem consists of a fish farm, greenhouse, biogas plant, power plant, and wind mill and biodiesel plant. The fish farm is located on dry land so its nutrient rich water is circulated to the greenhouse as a nutri-ent for the vegetables. The biogas plant is located on a landfill and it utilizes both the gases from the landfill itself and from incoming waste such as fish and vegetable waste from the own production. The gas is used in the generator and the electricity is sold. The carbon dioxide produced will be used in the greenhouse. The excess heat that comes from producing electricity is used in food production and warming up local business spaces. The electricity production will get better by combining the biogas and wind power. The fish waste from the fish farm will be used for biodiesel; this can be used in the logistics of the whole system. The leftover mass from biogas production is used as fertilizer.

The other special distinction receiver is Norwegian Catch Solar Energy solar collector; this will replace all the other energy sources giving clean, renewable energy for heating water and space. The efficiency to yield energy is about 90 % and the temperatures are higher than in the other solar collectors. This gives a better return on investments and keeps the prices low. This is an easy solution to take in to use and it has excellent energy efficiency.

More information from the published competition book.