Photo: City of Pori / Marika Virtanen
The first gas filling station in Pori, on the west coast of Finland, was inaugurated this week at Maamiehenkatu in the district of Tiilimäki. The station provides compressed natural gas (CNG) and biogas for cars, delivery vehicles, waste management vehicles and buses.
Gasum is actively developing its network of biogas and natural gas filling stations and will open 35 new filling stations over the next few years. A number of stations are planned for the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Turku, Oulu and Lahti, among other places.
”We are working for cleaner road traffic and are now intensively building a network of filling stations. The number of gas-fueled vehicles in Finland is growing at a record rate. There is a desire to see more traffic fueled by renewable energy on Finnish roads and biogas is one of the most attractive options to traditional fuels. The opening of the filling station in Pori has been eagerly awaited in the Satakunta region and further improves the possibilities for consumers and companies in the area to switch to using biogas. Besides Pori, this year drivers of gas-fueled vehicles can already fill up at filling stations in other new places in Hämeenlinna, Jyväskylä and Vantaa,” says Gasum CEO Johanna Lamminen.
“The City of Pori is the largest municipal member in the Carbon Neutral Municipalities project. This means low emissions are naturally our goal in traffic, too. The opening of the station in Pori is an important part of the city’s moves this summer for low emission traffic,” says Aino-Maija Luukkonen, Mayor of Pori.
Also present at the inauguration was Eerola-yhtiöt, experts in the waste management business who were the first in Finland to switch over to driving on renewable Finnish biogas produced from their own waste.
“We are proud of being leaders. For us, driving on gas produced from our own waste is a natural way to be more environmentally sound as a company. Not only that, the utilization of waste in traffic also supports employment in Finland. We use biogas both in our heavy and light vehicles,” says Pasi Eerola CEO of Eerola-yhtiöt.
“The aim is to have more than 500 gas cars in Pori by 2020. The best thing would be if and when we get a biogas plant for Luotsinmäki, where biowaste and fueled cars can be obtained from Pori’s own waste”, says Matti Luhtanen, Project Manager at Prizztech Oy.
Gasum biogas is a renewable Finnish biofuel. Using biogas as a road fuel is the easy way to reduce carbon dioxide and particulate emissions. It is the only road fuel sold in Finland to have been awarded the Nordic Ecolabel as well as the Made in Finland Key Flag Symbol. Not only is biogas environmentally friendly, it is also an affordable road fuel.
(Source: Gasum and City of Pori)
