The call for applications on investment aid for energy infrastructure projects under Finland’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) has been opened. Applications will be accepted until the 15th of May 2024. The aid may be granted to companies and corporations for projects, where eligible costs exceed EUR 5 million. The investment aid available for projects is approximately EUR 35 million.

The Utajärvi solar power project of Oulun Seudun Sähkö is the first Finnish project that has signed a grant agreement under the EU renewable energy financing mechanism with the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency CINEA.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has outlined the priorities for energy aid in 2024. Energy aid promotes the production of renewable energy, renewable hydrogen and fuels refined from it, energy saving or more efficient production or use of energy, utilisation of waste heat or the transition towards a low-carbon energy system in other ways.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has started to update the low-carbon roadmaps together with the sectors. During the previous government term, 13 sectors drew up roadmaps describing their paths towards a low-carbon economy. Industry-specific approach helps to ensure that the roadmaps are ones that companies in the sector can identify with and genuinely commit to.

Minister of Climate and the Environment Kai Mykkänen appointed a working group, whose task is to find ways to promote offshore wind power in Finland. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment will also launch a legislative project on offshore wind power located in Finland’s exclusive economic zone. The measures will implement the objective of the Government Programme of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo to ambitiously promote the construction of offshore wind power and to clarify the rules related to it.