It has been some 18 months since the Climate Fund made the investment decision to finance QHeat’s purchase of more efficient equipment for drilling medium-deep heat wells. Since then, QHeat has commissioned three heat well projects in Finland and cooperation in their first ever international project in Estonia has begun. QHeat’s CEO Erika Salmenvaara shared the highlights of the past months.
Geothermal energy is a developing industry with great potential for positive climate impact in applications such as low-emissions heating solutions, balancing out seasonal variations in energy production and the development of local heating networks.
It’s been a busy and exciting 18 months for us at QHeat in many ways. We welcomed a new employee to the company in August to help us grow and expand our business. In addition to drilling heat wells into the Finnish bedrock, we are also taking our first steps into global markets.
Several completed projects in Finland
We have implemented three heat well projects in Finland during 2023: a geothermal heating plant, which is part of Vantaan Energia’s district heating network in Vantaa, started operations in the beginning of 2023. The estimated annual energy production of the three 800 meters deep wells is 2,600 MWh, which corresponds to the annual heating demand of about 130 private houses.
In addition, we finished two residential area heating plant projects this year in Espoo, Finland. Three apartment buildings in Finnoo are heated completely emissions-free with the help of three medium-deep heat wells. Another three apartment buildings will be connected to the heating plant at a later stage and the heat wells produce a combined annual energy output of 1940 MWh. This energy is used to heat a total of 14,000 square meters of floor space and approximately 250 apartments. Yet another residential heating plant in Niittykumpu started its operation in June.
Our first ever heating plant, which we built in 2019 for a logistics center in Koskelo Espoo, continues to run smoothly. We have been responsible for the maintenance of the plant during its operation and continue to cooperate with our clients with the maintenance of the heat wells in Finnoo and Niittykumpu as well.
The past year has been heavily focused on the introduction of new modern drilling equipment for us. With the help of the Climate Fund’s financing, we purchased a compressed air equipment in early 2023 and a new Qmatec drilling rig from Norway in May. The new equipment makes the drilling of heat wells more efficient and enables us to reduce project costs. In addition, we have been drilling at a project site in Salo with a new Geomachine 2000 drill since March. The GM2000 drill allows us to go deeper and thus extract more energy from the heat well.
First steps into global markets
We are very excited about our first international project! We started cooperation with the Geological Survey of Estonia (GSE) in July this year. GSE is eagerly waiting for the studies of the first medium-deep geothermal borehole in Estonia. The 500-meter-deep hole will be drilled by the Engineering Bureau STEIGER together with us. Our role is to consult deep drilling in crystalline rock. Our goal for this collaboration is to build drilling partnerships to speed up the scaling in international markets.
International demand is building momentum. The energy crisis in Europe has increased the demand for new technologies. For example, Germany has set ambitious targets for increasing the use of geothermal energy. On the other hand, the US market invests heavily in geothermal heat production through investments and subsidies.
Erika Salmenvaara
CEO
QHeat