Lithuania's Grigiškes Group continues installing biomass steam boilers in order to reduce its dependance on natural gas and reduce energy production costs.
Recycling containerboard manufacturer Klaipedos Kartonas, a subsidiary of Lithuania's Grigiškes Group, Vilnius, has signed a contract with the SEB Bank to finance the construction of a new 22.5 MW biomass fuelled steam boiler. According to Grigiškes, SEB Bank will provide the company with a LTL11m (€3.2m) loan. Once the new steam plant is up and running, Klaipedos Kartonas will reportedly meet all its energy needs by burning wood residues and could completely renounce the use of natural gas.
Despite the fact that Klaipedos Kartonas is processing only recovered paper and will have to buy the wood residues on the market, Grigiškes believes that the company will achieve substantial costs savings compared to natural gas. The price of heat produced by burning wood waste was nearly twice as low as in the case when natural gas is burned, Gintautas Pangonis, president and chairmen of the board explained.
At the start of year, Grigiškes announced it was going to invest a total of LTL30m (€8.7m) in two biomass plants at the sites in Vilnius and Klaipeda, of which LTL12m (€3.5m) would be provided by the European Cohesion Fund. In mid-June, the company had signed the Lithuanian power plant builder Enerstena UAB to supply and install a new 12 MW biomass steam plant in Vilnius at a cost of LTL12.6m (€3.6).
