Wind Power | Not all planned offshore wind power can fit into Finland’s electricity grid

Offshore wind power the equation seems difficult. Grid company Fingrid has already received 95,000 megawatts of offshore wind connection inquiries. However, with these prospects, only 6,500 megawatts of new grid connections are available.

The grid company Fingrid has drawn up a plan during the spring at which points offshore wind farms could eventually connect to the Finnish grid.

The connection points would be near Raisio, Ulvila, Närpiö, Vaasa and Raahe.

Fingrid’s plan is now in the statement. When choosing the connection points, it has been taken into account where it would be most efficient in terms of building the main network. In any case, the plan requires a lot of construction work from Fingrid.

Five in addition to the new point, a large offshore wind farm could be connected to Inkoosee in Uudellemaa right away, because there was once a large coal-fired power plant of Fortum on the shore, and that’s why the network connections exist. However, the Defense Forces did not want wind power in the Gulf of Finland.

“Inkoo would be a good place as long as it is close to major electricity consumption destinations in southern Finland,” says the head of strategic network planning Mikko Heikkilä from Fingrid.

Heikkilä it is clear that not all offshore wind projects can be realized. The development of electricity demand and the competitiveness of offshore wind power will decide which projects will be implemented.

“Already 6,500 megawatts is almost as much as all current onshore wind power. This amount would produce almost as much electricity as current nuclear power plants, so it would be a really considerable amount,” he says.

Each connection has a maximum size of 1,300 megawatts, because, according to Fingrid’s assessment, the Finnish electricity system cannot withstand sudden power fluctuations greater than that.

However, according to Heikkilä, consumption could also be connected to the same point, i.e. a hydrogen plant, for example. Part of the wind electricity could go directly to its use, in which case more power could be connected to these points.

Offshore wind power are planned for the territorial waters of Finland, the economic zone beyond it and the Åland Islands. Regional water is managed by Metsähallitus, which auctions project areas. The first competition has already been completed and the following ones are underway.

The grid connection points currently being planned would probably be filled to a fairly large extent by regional water projects.

Even in the economic zone, many project developers have already drawn their power plants, sometimes even on top of each other. Environmental impact assessments have also been commissioned for the projects, even though the rules of the game have not been drawn up.

There is a law on how the offshore wind rights in the economic zone will be distributed starting next year. The purpose is to give equal opportunities to all who wish to participate, and entrepreneurs who have already started preparations at their own risk will not be given an advantage.

The real thing there is hardly any rush. So far, offshore wind power is about twice as expensive to build as onshore wind power.

So it may be that onshore wind power will be built much more than sea wind for a long time to come. This will especially happen if it is possible to build in Eastern Finland in the future.

So far, the Finnish Defense Forces has prevented wind power projects in Eastern Finland because the power plants interfere with research.

There are, to some extent, about twice the amount of wind power projects planned for land in preparation compared to offshore wind power, i.e. no less than 200,000 megawatts. Only a small part of them will be realized.

Offshore wind plans are based on wild predictions about the growth of electricity consumption in Finland. In Fingrid’s scenarios, it has been estimated that consumption can roughly double from the current ample 80 terawatt hours to 166 terawatt hours already by 2035. A watt hour is a unit of the amount of electricity produced.

The electricity production capacity would be 56,000 megawatts in ten years. According to Fingrid, there will be around 23,000 megawatts next year, one third of which will be wind power. A watt tells how much electricity can be produced.

According to Fingrid, the consumption forecasts can come true if there is a large amount of hydrogen and electric fuel production, new data centers and a metal industry using green hydrogen in Finland.

So far, there are quite a few definite investment decisions, but there are many plans in preparation.

According to Fingrid, the need for connections will be reassessed in the future if electricity consumption increases even more than expected.