Westenergy is a pioneer of carbon recycling
At Westenergy’s waste-to-energy plant in Koivulahti, around 190,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide – a by-product of energy production – can be captured and put to new use by 2027. The carbon recycling efforts join the company’s long-term commitment to improve the circular economy. As a major local supplier of waste management services, district heating, electricity, and recovered materials, Westenergy is pointing the way forward with its carbon capture project not only in Finland but also globally.
“Waste-to-energy is by no means the biggest CO₂ emitter in Europe, but we have excellent opportunities to become the first hard-to-abate sector to fully solve the question of carbon capture”, says Managing Director Olli Alhoniemi.
“With the 500 waste-to-energy plants in Europe, the sector has the potential to capture around 70 million tonnes of CO₂ annually – Finland alone being able to cover 1.5 million tonnes. This is an untapped source of high-quality carbon, which will be essential as a key industrial feedstock as we move to cut our dependence on imported virgin fossil carbon.”
Westenergy’s primary goal is to reduce the overall amount of waste, in particular by supporting radical improvements in source separation. The company is partnering with two Finnish universities to bring a new era of waste detection in the Ekoälyä project, partially funded by the ERDF.
Westenergy’s Head of Business Intelligence, Juha Ripatti, is leading one work package within the project.
“With our partners, we intend to deploy a combination of sensor fusion, artificial intelligence, and ecosystem-wide data sharing to understand the exact composition of incoming waste in real-time. These technologies have not yet been combined in such an ambitious manner. If we manage to make it work, we have better possibilities to direct recycling efforts as well as find lucrative material streams to recycle before our plant and protect it from missorted waste fractions”, Ripatti states.
The first detection pilots will be deployed in 2025.
We aim to build Finland’s first full-scale waste-to-energy carbon capture plant
However, it is a fact that non-recyclable waste will exist for decades to come. For this type of waste, incineration with energy recovery and carbon capture represents the best available solution. That is why waste-to-energy facilities need to capture their CO₂ and become long-term, sustainable sources of high-quality carbon.
“By processing society’s non-recyclable waste, we produce two key outputs – emission-free energy and CO₂. If this CO₂ is captured and used to create new products, such as plastics, the carbon returns to society instead of the climate. As these products are recycled and end up back in waste-to-energy plants, the loop begins again”, Westenergy’s Strategic Policy Officer Camille Dubost explains.
While there are different possibilities to utilise CO₂ from non-recyclable waste, Dubost laments that “The current regulatory framework for carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) is underdeveloped and too restrictive, which limits commercially and environmentally viable recycling opportunities.”
To fully harness the potential of CCU linked to waste-to-energy, she believes that there needs to be a stronger push for net-zero, low-carbon, and circular products, along with policies that promote the incorporation of recycled carbon into products as part of the renewed EU Circular Economy Agenda. Right now, the policies still support a linear fossil carbon economy.
“No progress can be achieved without long-term regulatory visibility. Decarbonisation efforts in the waste-to-energy sector must be recognized and supported at both EU and national levels”, Alhoniemi states.
Nonetheless, Westenergy has not shied away from doing its part. During the preceding EnergySampo CCU project, the company was actively looking for opportunities to increase the size of its future carbon capture facility. Success struck in late 2023, when a preliminary agreement was reached with partners in the synthetic fuel sector and the development of a full-size carbon capture plant, named project ECCU, began. Alhoniemi also mentions that a key driver was the decision by the Ministry of Economic affairs and Employment to grant a sizeable investment subsidy in December 2023.
“We are happy to see the active approach of the Finnish government.”
As of early 2025, the project company Eccu Ltd is preparing for an investment decision.
“We aim to build the first full-scale waste-to-energy carbon capture plant in Finland. At first, most of its captured and liquefied CO₂ will be supplied to our partners in the synthetic fuel industry to reduce emissions in the transport sector. However, we are working with several partners to find the best long-term products. The viability of these innovative products is clear, but we need the politicians and regulators to do their part to get the market started”, says Ripatti.
