The energy that makes Boden sprout and thrive

What role does energy play in Boden's development journey and future plans? Before Christmas, the energy group within the North Sweden Green Deal gathered to learn and be inspired by the municipality's work and visions.
– We wanted something and dared to invest in it, says Mats Berg, head of business and CEO of the municipal companies.

During our study visit, two keys to Boden's journey from a declining regimental town to today's thriving municipality with many new industries in place and on the way will return. Land and energy. Energy and land. And on top of that – hard and long-term work.

– When the Norrbotten media noted that Boden won the lottery with H2 Green Steel, it was not a lottery, it was the result of strategic work, says Mats Berg.

Mats Berg at the site where Boden Industrial Park is emerging. Boden has had almost no industrial infrastructure. Photo: Mats Engfors / Fotographic.

At Boden Business Park, the energy group within the North Sweden Green Deal project has gathered. It includes people from the Norrbotten Region, the municipalities of Boden, Gällivare, Kiruna, Luleå and Piteå, as well as the County Administrative Board. They are grappling with questions such as how the energy systems in Norrbotten should be used optimally. They are trying different ways to make use of waste heat and to use residual products as much as possible.

Here, Boden is at the forefront – and that is one of the reasons we are here. Boden has also been successful in attracting electricity-intensive industries.

– We started to see the benefits of electricity-intensive industries around 2010, after Facebook was established in Luleå, says Mats Berg, who was the mayor of Boden until November 2022.

Bought up land

In the mid-2010s, the municipality began buying up land here and there. Around 20 million kronor was invested in land. Ready, buildable and accessible land is worth its weight in gold for companies looking to establish themselves.

– The combination of electricity and land means that we should be attractive to the world. That has been the driving force behind it all. Initially, we worked with data centers, says Tomas Fägerman, CEO of Boden Business Park.

Tomas Fägerman is CEO of Boden Business Park, here in the part that is the hub of Boden's investment in the gaming industry.

One of the land areas purchased by the municipality is what is now Boden Plug & Play. A former military area with electricity access and infrastructure suitable for a data center.

“The municipality bought it back from a private owner. Otherwise it might have become a caravan park,” says Fägerman.

Today, Plug & Play is also a testbed area for energy symbioses based on waste heat. Excess heat from the electronics in the data centers flows into a greenhouse on the site. So far, it is on a small scale, to learn and then be able to scale up.

Tropical climate in the greenhouse

It's eighteen degrees below zero outside and dark when we step into the warm, bright and humid greenhouse. The contrast when you step inside is enormous. Under long benches with plants on them run thick pipes with holes. The waste heat from the data centers flows out of them.

It may seem a little sparse between the plants, but what is happening here is an experiment. Manne Ek, who works in the greenhouse, tells us what we see around us. Lettuce, spices, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers. Papaya, melon and pineapple. What is harvested is used in the municipality's own cafes.

– It's about trying small things and not promising anything. But we have taken the initiative to build a greenhouse ourselves. It's a signal value, we are serious about wanting something, it's not just a PowerPoint slide, says Håkan Nordin, business developer for electricity-intensive industries, who shows us the greenhouse.

– But if we can scale up to larger greenhouses of 10 square meters, then we will start to end up in commercial operations, which is the goal somewhere.

Håkan Nordin talks about how the plans for Plug & Play impressed the Swedish Energy Agency during a visit in 2019. The agency had been assigned to review how energy use could be made more efficient. Boden was able to show with a picture how they thought about symbiotic effects, flows in an energy system. Now the vision from the presentation has started to take shape on the ground.

Gathering expertise

One of the participants on the study visit to Boden, Alexander Kult from Gällivare municipality, is grappling with similar issues at home. There will be a lot of waste heat from Hybrit and LKAB.

– It is very interesting to review, together with the other municipalities, the region and the County Administrative Board, what opportunities there are with the enormous amount of waste heat that will arise. To utilize it in society.

The energy group within the North Sweden Green Deal project will be an opportunity to collaborate across organizational boundaries.

– We gather expertise and exchange experiences. I think it's really exciting to have this exchange of experience that we need in Norrbotten when so much is going to happen in a short time. We need to work together to make it possible in the best way, says Alexander.

Alexander Kult on site at Markbygden's wind farm, one of the goals of the energy group's study visit last fall.

Essentially, circular flows are about the idea that something that no longer has value for one company – in this case, waste heat – can still have value for someone else. How can companies manage it and sell it to each other?

– The difficult thing is the integration between different actors. We work with each other's raw materials as resources. The data centers create an opportunity to explore these systems and find the gaps. We think that food is not so stupid, says Tomas Fägerman.

“Got thick forehead”

Boden also has extensive experience in making biogas from household food waste. They were among the first in the country to invest in it.

– There is strength in understanding what it means when you add new energy to a society. We have 22 years of experience with biogas, it has been formative and has given us a thick forehead, says Fägerman.

Out in the cold and darkness again, some of the energy group are starting to think about the potential of a large greenhouse and what it could mean for the attractiveness. Can you have a restaurant in a tropical environment? Running tracks? Rent out office space?

Waste heat can be used to power greenhouses, but what else? Outdoor swimming pools? Fish farming? Much remains to be tested.

The contrast to Boden Industrial Park where the ground is now being prepared is enormous. We freeze slightly and see in the early twilight how work vehicles in the distance dart back and forth with excavated materials. The area is enormous, as big as Kungsholmen in Stockholm. This is where H2 Green Steel's hydrogen plant and steel mill will grow.

“Showcase for the world”

Ida-Linn Näzelius, sustainability manager at H2 Green Steel, stands and points out the location of the hydrogen plant, where the railway will be laid, the forest area that will be preserved and separates the hydrogen plant from the steel mill. Where the Lapp buttercup used to grow and where it has been moved.

– Norrbotten is building a showcase for the world. The rest of the world can see how we have done, how the whole society is changing, says Ida-Linn Näzelius.

The fact that H2 Green Steel starts from scratch makes it easier to build the company in a sustainable way, she says.

– We can choose exactly how we want to build, we have no old systems to take into account, but with that comes an enormous responsibility to choose what is best. Both in comparing different technologies but also on the waste side. What can we do with our residual products? How much waste heat will we have and what can we do with it? There is still land to use. There is a palette of solutions where we should put the puzzle together. We can do this from the beginning, says Ida-Linn.

– We have a 100-hectare nature area between the facilities where the aim is to increase biodiversity and where we have collaboration with the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, says Ida Linn Näzelius.

The fact that H2 Green Steel ended up here is due to the fact that the municipality was able to offer land – but above all, the proximity to a large switchyard outside Boden.

– The renewable electricity that everyone wants is here. It was a game changer that that hub for renewable electricity is here in Boden. The raw material for producing fossil-free steel will be available for another 60 years, then you will dare to invest. Within a three-mile radius we have a university, airport, regional hospital, ports, culture and outdoor activities, says Hans Stålnacke, CEO of Bodens Energi.

– But electricity production and lots of infrastructure need to be expanded up here. What needs to happen in the near future is strengthening the 400-kilovolt grid. 

“Sell Boden in the world”

The switchyard was once built to meet Steel Plant 80, an initiative that did not come to fruition.

"We realized that we have a unique asset in the form of the switchyard. Based on that, we have worked on establishing ourselves. We have worked strategically and systematically to sell Boden around the world and have a finished product to land companies in," says Mats Berg.

This is the work Berg is referring to when he says that H2 Green Steel was not a “lottery win.” Luck was not a factor in the whole thing.

– This doesn't happen if you don't dare. It's actually about a courageous policy that dares to listen to people like us.

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Text: Sara Stylbäck Vesa
Image unless otherwise noted: Sara Stylbäck Vesa