Meet TRAF members: Suomen Hyötytuuli

Suomen Hyötytuuli operates the first offshore wind farm in Finland, Tahkoluoto. Jaakko Kleemola is a Business Development Director in Hyötytuuli.

How do you see the future of energy sector and your role in it?

In the future, the energy sector will be moving further away from using fossil fuels. Suomen Hyötytuuli is a Finnish developer and producer of wind power and is dedicated to building a carbon neutral future, both onshore and offshore.

Why did you join Team Renewable Arctic Finland?

When we embarked on designing Tahkoluoto wind farm offshore the coast of Pori, we soon found out that in Finland, we do not have a consortium for providing the services needed to build an offshore wind farm. We were thus the driving force behind TRAF. Our goal was to create a network that would provide services for our own offshore projects and facilitate new offshore projects in Finland and the Baltics.

What do you consider most interesting about ecosystem work thinking of green transition?

We are working to find new, cost-efficient ways of building market-based offshore projects. The model that is used in the North Sea is not applicable to Finland as such. There are several differences in the offshore projects in Finland and the North Sea: Firstly, the North Sea model relies heavily on government funds and is significantly more expensive. Furthermore, the salinity in the North Sea is higher, the seabed is different, wind power stations are built further out at sea, and the sea does not freeze over in the winter. In Finland, the most important target of the ecosystem is to find cost-efficient ways of carrying our market-based offshore projects without public funding.

What is the added value that you bring to the green transition through the ecosystem?

Our strength is our solid know-how in offshore wind power. As developers of offshore wind power, we have the understanding and vision of what is required of the services, and we have the ability to help the service providers to develop their services to meet these requirements. In return, we hope to find suitable service providers for our offshore projects.

How do you see the role of offshore wind in green transition?

If we can eliminate some of the bottlenecks in the investment environment, it will remarkably speed up offshore projects. For example, the property taxes for onshore and offshore wind power are not aligned. The state-owned forestry company sets the pace for building new offshore wind farms by deciding the schedule for releasing new areas for wind power development. The Finnish government has set the targets for climate neutrality for 2035, but there are no specific targets for wind power. Setting those specific targets might help speed up offshore wind projects.