The construction of Volter’s new premises in Tupos was completed in February 2018, and the official opening ceremony was held on 1 June 2018. Approximately 85 invitees gathered to celebrate the new premises. The founder of Volter Oy, Prime Minister of Finland Juha Sipilä, took part in the event and gave a speech.
Prime Minister Juha Sipilä spoke about the importance of renewable and clean biomass energy production and CHP’s role in the fight against climate change. In the Nordic green to scale –report the Nordic countries offer proven and scalable solutions for cutting emissions globally. Combined heat and power production was listed as a number one solution for reducing carbon footprint in energy production. The topical report was also one of the topics in the Nordic prime ministers meeting in May.
Prime Minister Juha Sipilä also told his memories from the early days of Volter. The first project of the company was the Kempele Ecovillage residential area. It was an R&D project that hasn’t often been seen; they had tested some parts for a CHP before, but the technology wasn’t ready. The schedule was to finish the CHP at the same time with the Ecovillage houses.
– My message and experience are that you need to dare to step down and give young people the opportunity. If old men had run Volter, the company wouldn’t be here. Young people dare to go for the challenges from which we older people have experience, and therefore know there may be difficulties on the way. The design, usage and the markets of the product have changed during the years, said Prime Minister in his speech.
New production line multiplies Volter’s production capacity
With the growth of Volter, designing of new premises started in the spring of 2016. The production process was modelled with Valmet Automotive. Two years later, the new production line in Tupos was switched on for the first time.
Volter’s new factory and its production process are carefully planned. The frame of the power plant is placed at the beginning of the conveyor and parts of the power plant are installed to the frame. At the end of the line, a completed and tested Volter 40 CHP is loaded into a sea container or a truck to travel to the customer. Loading is done indoors, with a bridge crane.
With the new production line, the Volter 40 CHP’s production time has halved, and Volter can manufacture annually 200 CHP’s in one shift. The new production process is multiplying company’s production capacity. The new location close to the highway serves well logistics needs and visibility.
– When I started to work in Volter 3,5 years ago, we had a total of 100 square meters space, at two different locations, and I was the seventh employee. Now we have 19 employees and more than 2000 square meters. Growth has also been rapid concerning turnover, and moving to new premises was in every way needed, says Laura Eräpuro-Piila, vice-president of Volter Oy.