The European Commission has approved a €2.3bn Finnish scheme to support investments in strategic sectors and help industrial companies decarbonise their production processes and transition to a Net Zero economy under a three-pronged approach.
The first measure will support investments in the production of energy from renewable sources (excluding electricity generation), electricity or thermal storage and storage of renewable hydrogen, biofuels, bioliquids, biogas, biomethane or biomass fuels.
The second will fund decarbonisation of industrial production processes by helping companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their production processes by at least 40% and/or reduce their energy consumption by at least 20%.
The third will support investments for the production of strategic equipment (batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, heat-pumps, electrolysers and carbon capture usage and storage), as well as key components designed and primarily used as direct input for the production of such equipment or related critical raw materials necessary for their production. The Commission approved the aid measure under EU State aid rules.
Scandinavia is already at the forefront of the switch to green and clean technologies, and Finland is active across the hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO2) space.
P2X Solutions recently began commercial operations of green hydrogen at its 20MW Harjavalta production plant.
Read more: P2X Solutions CEO urges action as green hydrogen production begins in Finland
CO2 captured directly from the air is being used to develop sustainable aviation fuel (eSAF) in a demonstration project in Finland. Soletair Power, a Finnish direct air capture (DAC) company, has delivered a batch of CO2 extracted from ambient air to Liquid Sun, a CO2 utilisation specialist, to help refine synthetic aviation fuel feedstocks.
Read more: CO2 captured from air for eSAF in Finnish pilot
In another innovative move, Solar Foods is making protein from CO2 and direct air capture.
Read more: Finnish start-up makes strides with sustainable food from CO2
A new facility in Espoo is turning bio-based CO2 captured from sectors such as the forest industry and waste incineration into compounds that can replace fossil raw materials in plastic products and chemicals.
Read more: Pilot plant in Finland aims to transform captured CO2 into plastic
