Finland commits to doubling its innovation funding to clean energies
Finland has joined the international Mission Innovation initiative and at the same time commits to doubling the public innovation funding it directs to renewable energies and energy systems from the present level of about €50 million by 2020. Mission Innovation, an initiative published in connection with the Paris climate negotiations, is aimed at increasing clean energy innovations to mitigate climate change and to secure clean energy sources.
– Clean and renewable energies have a central role in reaching our ambitious climate goals. In my view, the Mission Innovation initiative is an excellent way to encourage different countries and growth-oriented businesses to productive collaboration to mitigate climate change, says Minister of Economic Affairs Olli Rehn.
Minister Rehn emphasises that many of the measures in Government’s key projects aim at just the kind of innovations the MI initiative calls for. For example, developing collaboration between higher education institutions and businesses to strengthen the commercialisation of innovations, and enabling carbonless, clean and renewable energy as cost-effectively as possible are compatible with the general principles of MI. Many of the initiative’s focus areas can already be found in the Team Finland programmes, such as Clean transition to the bioeconomy, BEAM, Agrotechnology from Finland, Cleantech Finland, and Waste to Energy and Bioenergy.
Finland’s MI membership opens the door to collaboration between Finnish cleantech companies and international capital investors, who also pledged to finance clean energy investments in the Paris climate meeting.
– This is an excellent new opportunity for Finnish companies, as international commercial competition for clean energy solutions is likely to become tighter in the next few years due to more centralised research funding, says Minister Rehn.
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition initiative launched in connection with the Paris climate meeting consists of 28 private investors from 10 different countries, among them Bill Gates and Marc Zuckerberg. The investments are directed to new clean energy solutions that are being developed in projects under MI.
The Mission Innovation initiative is a recent form of collaboration as it has only been organised since June 2016 when it was announced in the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM7) meeting in San Francisco. Finland is involved in CEM’s operation and participates in CEM’s meeting at ministerial level, but it is the MI membership that enables Finnish enterprises to take advantage of BEC funding.
More information online:
http://mission-innovation.net/
http://cleanenergyministerial.org
http://www.breakthroughenergycoalition.com
www.unfccc.int
Further Information:
Chief Counsellor Pentti Puhakka, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, tel. +358 50 511 7414
Markku Rajala, Special Adviser, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, tel. +358 50 345 8490