Industry Energy Industry | Key people Carl Haglund (CEO) Website www.kaidi.fi Founded 2016 | |
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Parent Sunshine Kaidi New Energy Group | ||
Kaidi Finland is a Finnish energy company that specializes in renewable energy. It plans to build a biofuel refinery in Kemi, Finland. The refinery, which is planned to be completed in 2019, utilizes second generation biofuel technology. Its investment value is around one billion euros. The CEO of Kaidi Finland is Carl Haglund.
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Kemi biofuel refinery
The biofuel refinery in Kemi would generate approximately 200,000 metric tons of biofuel, of which 75% would be biodiesel and 25% biofuel. The feedstock used in the refinery would be mainly energy wood along with crop residues and surplus materials from the forest industry.
The refinery’s yearly demand for wood would be 2 million cubic tons of energy wood. There is a total of 120,000 hectares of forest in need of first felling within a 200 kilometer range of Kemi. An amount of 20 million cubic meters of energy wood can be harvested from it yearly. Currently, approximately 6 million cubic meters of wood is left over in the woods every year. Kaidi Finland has reported that it may also procure energy wood from Sweden.
The effect the refinery would have on employment in Kemi is notable. The building process would bring 4,000 person-years’ worth of labor to the area. When the refinery is completed, it would employ 150 persons full-time while bringing hundreds of jobs to local subcontractors and energy wood providers. The domestic content of the project is estimated to be around 50 percent. Kaidi will make the final decision regarding the investment during 2016.
Technology
The planned refinery in Ajos, Kemi would utilize second generation biofuel technology, such as plasma gasification, syngas cleanup and the Fischer-Tropsch process. Plasma gasification involves heating the processed material to a notably higher temperature than in other gasification methods, making it more suitable for the processing of demanding materials, such as wood. The process increases the efficiency of the feedstock.
The Fischer-Tropsch process is a catalytic chemical reaction, where carbon monoxide and hydrogen are transformed into liquid hydrocarbons. The catalysts are iron and cobalt based and speed up the chemical reaction in certain temperatures. The primary function of the process is to produce a synthetic oil replacement to be used as a synthetic lubricant or fuel. The process was invented by Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch in the 1920s as a way of producing liquid fuel.
Second generation biofuels refer to fuels that utilize municipal solid waste and materials high in lignocellulose content in their production.
Project
Kaidi first began planning the biofuel refinery in 2014 after the previous project by Vapo and Metsä Group was discontinued. Vapo and Metsä Group had planned to build a similar refinery in Ajos. This means that the city of Kemi is already well prepared for the planned refinery and has advanced the required permit applications. In 2016, Kaidi Finland plans to finalize the permit applications along with the design and modeling of the refinery. The building project would start in 2017 and the refinery would begin producing biofuel for commercial markets in 2019.
Kaidi in China
The parent company for Kaidi in China is Sunshine Kaidi Energy Group. The company was formed in 1992 and its current CEO is Chen Yilong. The headquarters of Sunshine Kaidi Energy Group are located in Wuhan, Hubei. The company is active in 24 Chinese provinces and Vietnam. One of the main goals for the company is to build 250 production plants that utilize biomass by 2022. The holding company is privately owned, and all the subsidiaries are listed in the Shenzhen stock market. The company has had plans to expand to European markets; according to the company the Kemi refinery makes Finland a natural starting point for this expansion.