With heat pumps or electric boilers, it is still not possible to generate heat in winter frosts in a way that would be economically viable in any way, writes Pekka Vihervuori.
From the reader. In Kauppalehti Varpu Sairinen wrote (KL 10.4.) that biomass should start being taxed, and at the same time the production of district heat would reportedly be directed from the use of biomass to heat pumps and electric boilers.
Biomass, especially forest wood chips and the by-products of the sawmill industry, have become more expensive nationwide since the start of the war in Ukraine by more than 70 percent, wood pellets even more.
Forest wood (and wood pellets) are used in Finland by hundreds of small and large heating plants all over Finland. Heating companies are already really tight with expensive fuel and increases in customer prices, and in the majority of companies they have had to partially or even completely transfer the prices to customer prices for district heating.
After a long and cold winter, housing companies struggling with increased energy bills have already missed payments because the rate of increase in prices has been so high compared to before.
If you weren’t allowed to burn wood, what would the hundreds of heating companies in Finland burn – oil?
An increase of a good ten euros in the price of wood and district heating would be a shocking addition to the already increased heating costs, especially when there is still no end in sight to the increase in the price of wood.
Electric boilers that freeze in winter have big challenges
Bigger however, the problem in Sairinen’s writing is the fact that it is still not possible to use heat pumps or electric boilers to generate heat in winter frosts in such a way that it would be an economically profitable business in any way, especially if there is no own electricity production.
This is less often the case in a small municipality with a few thousand inhabitants. In addition to the financial unprofitability, the electricity network operator usually sells eiota when an electricity connection from a few megawatts upwards is needed outside large cities.
If you weren’t allowed to burn wood, what would the hundreds of heating companies in Finland burn – oil? There are no real alternatives, at least not yet.