As reported in yesterday’s Nordic Green News, Orsted was amongst the winners in the Crown Estate Scotland’s tender for wind energy, which raised almost GBP700 million in option premia from 17 consortia for the Scottish government. Today we can add that Sweden’s Vattenfall and Norway’s Fred. Olsen Seawind 50/50 JV was also a winner. According to the partners, the project means that two of Europe's leading developers in renewable energy can benefit from each other's expertise and experience in the field, such as finding solutions to challenges with floating offshore wind power and creating opportunities for local manufacturing and long-term sustainable jobs.
In its latest Sustainability Report, Ikea states that it is on track to reach its climate goals for 2030. Ikea says that it has succeeded in reducing its’ climate footprint by 5.8%. More renewable energy has been used throughout the value chain. With two thirds of the time left until 2030, it is on the right track and has achieved a third of our emission reduction through many steps in the short and medium term. Sustainability Manager Lena Pripp-Kovac said “We also have plans to address the long-term steps and the complex challenges that remain.”
Hycamite TCD Technologies and Jervois Finland have signed a letter of intent for the potential supply of zero-emission hydrogen. Hycamite manufactures hydrogen and solid, battery-grade carbon by decomposing, without greenhouse gas emissions, methane molecules from natural gas and biogas. Jervois Finland is a fully owned subsidiary of the publicly listed Australian group, Jervois Global.
Jervois Finland is exploring the possibility of using Hycamite’s zero-emission hydrogen in its own production. Hydrogen is utilised in the reduction of cobalt because it reduces metal salts and oxides under suitable conditions.
The Karlshamn plant in southeast Sweden used 27,984 tonnes of heavy fuel oil last year, up from 3,636 tonnes in 2020, data from operator Uniper show. Electricity output from Karlshamn jumped to 110 GWh last year, the most since 2010 (in a typicla year Sweden uses over 130TWh). Uniper has an agreement with Sweden’s grid operator that the plant can be called upon when reserve power is needed between mid-November and mid-March, and the plant also runs when prices are high enough to make a profit. The plant “has been called upon more frequently over the past few months, which is related to the shortage situation we’re now seeing in large parts of Europe,” Uniper spokesman Torbjorn Larsson said. According to Bloomberg, it’s the latest evidence of how combating global warming has taken a backseat as Europe faces an energy crisis.
The Nordic countries are some of the most dynamic and successful economies in the world. They are also leaders in sustainability, from renewable energy, biofuels, carbon capture and storage and the hydrogen economy, circular economy business models and battery development, the Nordics are pioneers in policy design, technology development and consumer uptake. Mundus Nordic Green News is covering this transition for the international community. Every day we curate the stories of most relevance to international businesspeople and policy experts from the flow of news. Mundus Nordic Green Indices summarise the meta-data from our daily coverage to enable easy tracking of trends. We supplement these with our own opinion pieces and commentary.