The Finnish government has granted permits to lease its seabed for the development of two large-scale offshore wind farms. State-owned forest and seabed administrator Metsähallitus has obtained permission to lease these areas.
Finland is seeking to be completely carbon-neutral by 2035 and has built significant amounts of onshore wind in the past 10 years. Wind power is now 10% of Finland’s electricity, up from less than 1% a decade ago. By 2025, wind should meet at least 27% of Finland’s electricity needs. The country will reach 5 GW of capacity by year’s end, most of it onshore.
There is only one small-scale 42 MW near-shore wind farm in Finnish waters, the Tahkoluoto wind farm, commissioned in 2017. The Finnish government now wants to expand this wind farm with up to 45 turbines with a capacity of 11-20 MW each. In total, this could take the capacity of Tahkoluoto up to 900 MW.
The other area, Korsnäs, is being pre-developed by Metsähallitus itself and located further north in the Bay of Bothnia. Originally, the plans for the site foresaw a 1.3 GW wind farm. But the government now has bigger plans for this zone and wants it to be able to have a capacity of up to 3 GW.
“Finland has been doing a great job with onshore wind and has a steady pipeline for the coming years,” says Pierre Tardieu, WindEurope’s chief policy officer. “With its ambitious offshore wind plans now, Finland is setting out a clear blueprint to shift away from fossil fuels and go climate neutral by 2035.”
