MODESPO training session in Finland

The third MODESPO training session took place in Finland between the 20th and 30th of August. A group of eight teachers and lecturers from the ITC (Institute of Technology of Cambodia) arrived to Helsinki-Vantaa airport on a cool +14C Sunday afternoon, very typical for the Finnish summer. 

The first week of the visit consisted mainly of lectures by different experts of TUT (Tampere University of Technology) on different kinds of renewable energy technologies, transmission grids and the kind. The ITC staff also got to see many of TUT’s fancy research equipment, among all the ‘regular’ testing and research equipment at the university. The first week also included a day visit to the summer seminar of the Doctoral Program of Electrical Energy Engineering (DPEEE), which is a Finnish national doctoral program organised in collaboration with a number of research institutes and educational units. The summer seminar was held in Murikka, which is located an hour north from Tampere right by a lake called Näsijärvi. 

After a week of very interesting lectures (really, most of them were interesting) the second week was reserved for various site visits. On Monday we drove to Lahti where we visited a Lahti Energy’s Kymijärvi II power plant. It is presumably the first gasification power plant in the world to “efficiently generate electricity and district heat from Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF)”. The raw material of the SRF is energy-containing waste. At the plant the SRF is gasified and then the gas is purified. The resulting clean ecogas is combusted in an ordinary natural gas boiler. After a presentation of the plant and a tour around its facilities we headed for Energon – a renewable energy research facility funded for the most part by Lahti Science and Business Park and the EU – where we had a close look at different biofuel testing equipment. 

Tuesday was spent in Tampere with visits to Demola – an open innovation platform for students and companies, Moreenia – centre for urban environment, and the Tampere power utility. On the final day of the site visits we went to western Finland to have a look at a wind power park and a biopower plant of Porin Prosessivoima Oy, both located in Pori.  On our way home we did a quick visit to the visitor centre of Olkiluoto nuclear power plant, not renewable energy, but an interesting site nonetheless. 

All in all the third training period turned out to be quite successful. The Cambodian delegation headed back home with many new experiences and knowledge acquired on the latest developments in renewable energies. The Finnish experts were also left with a number of insights and a broader viewpoint to their own field of expertise.