The electricity storage to be built at Nurmijärvi is 40 megawatts in size.
Energy company Helen invested in a large electricity storage facility to be built in Nurmijärvi.
According to Helen, this is one of the first large-scale electricity storage systems in Finland. The electricity storage based on lithium batteries has a size of 40 megawatts and is scheduled to be completed at the beginning of 2025.
Helen does not comment on the size of the investment.
“According to our calculations, it is a profitable project under market conditions,” the company's CEO Olli Sirkka says.
Electrical storage the purpose is to support the green transition, balance electricity price fluctuations and secure the security of supply of the electricity system.
In the future, the electricity system will rely even more on renewable forms of production. However, their problem is that electricity production varies according to weather conditions. If, for example, there is a shortfall in wind power production, electricity can be taken from storage.
Helen's goal is to give up energy production based on combustion by 2040. Increasing the flexibility of the energy system is at the center of the company's updated strategy.
“The emergence of a market-based flexible market is the single most important thing in the transition to renewable energy. It not only enables a green transition, but everyone wins,” says Sirkka.
Nurmijärvi's electricity storage consists of approximately 36 modules the size of a large sea container, which are connected to the grid of the grid company Fingrid. The electricity storage balances Finland's electricity production and consumption by participating in Fingrid's reserve market. If necessary, it can supply electricity to the power system with a power of 40 megawatts for an hour and a half.
A single electricity storage does not yet have much effect on the fluctuation of the price of electricity.
“Even though it's a really big warehouse, it's not massive on a national level. But when these start to build up and become more over the years, then the price fluctuation will naturally even out.”
In the project the possibility to expand the electricity storage is planned so that its capacity would be doubled.
According to Sirka, Helen's intention is to start investing heavily in promoting the flexibility of the energy system. In practice, therefore, more electricity storages are coming.
“Probably the Nurmijärvi warehouse will also be expanded, but we will definitely invest in these in connection with our own wind farms. We will probably invest in several places, but no investment decisions have been made yet,” says Sirkka.
Helen already currently has three electricity warehouses in research and development use. In addition to them, the Lakiakkanka wind farm operates a five-megawatt electricity storage facility. An electricity storage facility of the same size is under construction at the Lohja solar park.
The developer of the electricity storage project is Evli-Rahastoyhtiö's renewable energy fund, which will continue as a co-investor in the project after the investment. The project has also been developed by Siemens, which continues as an operation and management service partner.
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