Estonia’s Tallinn Airport has made the switch from gas heating to district heating in buildings on airport premises.

Riivo Tuvike, the chairman of the management board of Tallinn Airport, says active analysis of alternative sources of heating began in March. “We’d been planning to stop using gas for some time, and the situation in Europe sped up that process,” he explained. “Back in March we started analysing how we could ensure heating for all of our buildings while meeting our environmental targets.”

“Another positive is that making use of residue from local felling and timber-processing to generate heat cuts down on transport emissions and is in line with the principles of the circular economy, in which a use is found for all materials. Cost-effective management is something we can’t afford to forget about in the current economic climate. The total area of the buildings on the enclosed territory of the airport is 93,563 m², of which 70,129 m² is now covered by district heating. This year we’ve bought almost €2m worth of gas to heat our buildings with. If we’d been using district heating, we would have paid around half as much.”

Image: Tallinn Airport