International Student Project CIP between Lapland UAS and UAS Technikum Wien enters fifth year

The Cooperative International Student Project (CIP) took place for the fifth time in the winter semester 2022/23. Students from the Mechanical Engineering Program of Lapland University of Applied Sciences and the bachelor program Renewable Energies of the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien worked together on an energy concept of a biomass district heating plant in Kemi. The city of Kemi is located in northern Finland and has about 21 000 inhabitants. The main heat source for the winter heating requirements in the city center is district heating, which is produced in a local combined heat and power plant with a capacity of 32 MW (fluidized bed boiler) and 18 MW (rotary grate boiler). The plant does not produce electricity for its own power consumption, only a small photovoltaic system is used for the facilities and auxiliary components of the plant (e.g. pumps, lighting, etc.). The current plant is fueled by a mixture of peat and wood. In order to adapt the emissions of the plant to the stricter EU standards of peat use, this year’s student project aims to design an energy concept for the biomass district heating plant in Kemi based on renewable energy sources including thermal storage systems.

The project topics were:

The students had already started working on the project before the attendance week in Vienna in November 2022. Kick off was already at the end of September in Kemi, Finland, where the teachers of the project already defined the details. The time together in Vienna offered the students the opportunity to participate in workshops on their topics, to gain first-hand impressions and to visit the district heating plants Spittelau and Arsenal during excursions. At the end of the week, the students presented their projects to the supervisors of Lapland UAS and UAS Technikum Wien.

New this year was also the English support, which was provided in cooperation by Mark Adams from the UAS Technikum Wien and Sanna Jylhä from Lapland UAS during the whole course. This gave students the opportunity to improve their English skills, both written and oral, in addition to working on content-related topics.

In addition to studying and working in Vienna during the final project week, our Finnish guests also had the chance to take a look at the city itself, for example during a visit to the Christmas market.