In June 2022, Wärtsilä opened the doors to new technology centre, the Sustainable Technology Hub (STH), in Vaasa, Finland. The new centre will contribute to efforts to advance the global decarbonisation of marine and energy by fostering innovation, collaboration, and the development of green technologies using sustainable fuels and digital technologies.
The STH will implement visions of shaping the decarbonisation in the Marine and Energy sectors by linking different business lines including lifecycle solutions to maximise customer value proposition. The STH enables more agile, more efficient testing and product development of solutions for the maritime and energy industries. STH is an agile testing facility linking together various Centres of Excellence to improve product and solution development by maximising synergies. Wärtsilä’s functions and personnel, approximately 1500 persons, in central Vaasa are moved to the new technology centre, along with the logistics and maintenance workshop operations from Runsor, Vaasa.
The speed at which the marine and energy industries are moving to meet decarbonisation goals is accelerating. The STH, a world-leading centre for research, innovation, engineering and manufacturing, marks the start of a new era for Wärtsilä. By taking advantage of innovative technologies that already exist today, we can speed up the development of future-proof engines capable of running on sustainable fuels. We can now demonstrate that a carbon neutral future is achievable.
Håkan Agnevall, President and CEO of Wärtsilä Corporation
Wärtsilä already has engines operating on carbon neutral fuels. This year the company released its Wärtsilä 32 Methanol engine to the market, and within 2023 an ammonia concept will be ready. A hydrogen concept is expected to be available in 2025.
Citec is a long-term partner company to Wärtsilä and was also selected as one of the eight companies acknowledged as Technology Partners of STH. Since 2018, Citec has been involved in the process-, piping as well as structural steel design for the STH. The project has been challenging with regards to requirements, since the world has changed rapidly during the last three years and the interest in new fuels has brought additional aspects to the project scope. Citec will use the STH as a reference site for the parts of the engineering that Citec was accountable for during the engineering and construction phase. Citec intends to bring its own customers to STH to showcase Citec’s capabilities regarding piping design, process engineering and digital solutions. Citec’s involvement is mainly concentrated to STH´s engine testing facilities and their complex auxiliary systems. Auxiliaries required for engine run such as optional fuels, lubrication methods and engine cooling. Fuels are loaded and stored at the STH area, and Citec brings the fuel and lube oil transfer areas to a new level with compact and prefabricated solutions for the entire systems.
We highly appreciate Citec’s dedication in the project and we can deepen our cooperation even further. Citec is clearly one of our key partners to create a mutually beneficial agile ecosystem for development and deployment of the marine and energy industry solutions in the Sustainable Technology Hub.
Juha Päivike, STH Programme Director, Wärtsilä
Wärtsilä’s Sustainable Technology Hub will play a vital role for the sustainable future. It is great to see that Citec has been and will be a part of the development centre. The close collaboration will for sure continue with full speed with Wärtsilä.
Johan Westermarck, CEO, Citec
