Almost 87 pct of heat energy in Vilnius 'clean' – minister

VILNIUS - Almost 87 percent of "clean heat" will be produced in Vilnius as the most powerful heat pump in the Baltic states starts operating in Vilnius, Lithuanian Energy Minister Dainius Kreivys says.

"Even though it has gotten colder, we have done everything we can to make Vilnius residents feel warm in their homes, and we can see that if we used to burn materials or fuels that weren't very clean in this place, today we can state that we have almost 87 percent clean heat in Vilnius," Kreivys said at the launch of the new heat pump within the territory of the Vilnius Power Plant 2, operated by Vilnius Silumos Tinklai (Vilnius Heat Networks, VST) on Wednesday. 

"We now have the equipment we previously could only see in the Scandinavian countries," the minister added.

Vilnius Mayor Valdas Benkunskas says that the new absorption heat pump is one of the invisible solutions contributing to the efficiency of the capital's heating business. 

The absorption heat pump built by Greenerga for 8 million euros over the past 12 months and with a capacity of almost 9 megawatts (MW) will be in operation in the coming heating season. It will increase the efficiency of the boiler house and make use of waste heat, with the unit returning more than 17,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of additional heat energy to the system per year, saving around 1.36 million euros, VST said.

This amount of recovered energy would be enough to heat 26 A++ energy class apartment buildings with a total area of 13,500 square meters.