Nordic energy company Fortum will build a new hydrogen production pilot plant in Loviisa, Finland, near the site of a nuclear power plant on a plot owned by the company.
Financed entirely through Fortum’s R&D fund, the €17m ($18.3m) project will produce hydrogen from electrolysers with a capacity of around two megawatts and will include a filling station for the delivery of hydrogen to industrial customers.
According to the company, its test centre is expected to be fully operational for around two years between 2025 and 2028 and will provide the company with ‘valuable information’ on potentially larger plants and the business opportunities provided by green hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives.
“The pilot project is the first step towards possible future projects and investments,” said Satu Sipola, Vice President of Power-to-X at Fortum. “In addition to the test centre, we also have other hydrogen-related studies underway that involve customers and partners from various industries.”
Cleanly produced hydrogen offers a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels and raw materials across various sectors like steel and fertiliser manufacturing.
“We work to drive the development of clean hydrogen in the Nordic countries, and we engage in active research cooperation with companies in the forest, steel and chemical industries and the transport sector, for example,” added Sipola.
In its national hydrogen strategy, Finland revealed its target to account for 10% of the EU’s clean hydrogen production. The EU set a target of ten million tonnes of hydrogen by 2030 in its REPowerEU plan, which means Finland is aiming for a production capacity of around one million tonnes by the end of the decade.
Although export is an option, the Finnish government is keen for investments which allow domestic industry to decarbonise.
Finland’s largest oil company, Neste, is developing a 120MW green hydrogen production facility at its Porvoo refinery, which is expected to a play a central role in its target of reaching carbon neutrality by 2035.
Major companies such as Wärtsilä are also exploring the use of combining carbon emissions from wood-based industries, such as pulp mills, with hydrogen to produce synthetic fuels.
In March, the company announced that, in cooperation with WEC Energy Group, it was successfully running one of its 5OSG engines on 25% volume hydrogen-blended fuel.
Having already attracted funding of €35.4m ($38.1m) government funding, energy company St1 is planning a synthetic fuel production facility using cement kiln emissions and green hydrogen to make either methane or methanol.
The country is mainly banking on its wind project pipeline to deliver the green power required to establish a hydrogen economy. As of May this year, Finland had 120 gigawatts of additional wind capacity in various stages of development on top of the 5.6 GW in place at the end of 2022.
Transmission system operator FinGrid expects between 22-49 GW of new wind and solar capacity to be in operation by 2035.
