Finnish utility Fortum has begun development on an 80MW solar PV plant in Finland’s Virolahti municipality in the Southeast of the country bordering Russia. It will be Fortum’s first solar PV project in its home country.
The details of suppliers, technology, timescale or electricity sale for the project are yet to be announced, but Fortum confirmed that it will be located across the Yläpää and Uusitalo areas of Virohlati, covering around 160 hectares. The company said it will cover the whole value chain of the project.
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The Virohlati municipal board will discuss the zoning process at its next meeting and the plan will be open for public comment during the project development process, which is expected to run for 1-2 years.
“This project is a great start for us in solar power in Finland and we are happy that it has strong local support,” said Mikko Iso-Tryykäri, head of wind and solar project development at Fortum.
“We are developing the project in close cooperation with the landowners and the municipality of Virolahti. We see a lot of potential for solar power in the Nordic countries. There is a strong demand for renewable wind and solar power, which will grow even more as industry decarbonises and the demand for hydrogen increases.”
Until now, Fortum’s solar operations had been limited to co-ownership of a handful of projects in India. In July 2021 it divested itself of two of them totalling 500MW, selling them to private equity firm Actis.
Finland recently signed up to be a host country in the EU’s first cross-border solar tender under its Renewable Energy Finance Mechanism. 400MW worth of projects will be tendered with money provided by Luxembourg to be deployed in Finland, with the financing country taking 80% of the renewable energy credits towards its decarbonisation goals. PV Tech Premium spoke with the European Commission about the programme last month.
In April OX2 – a Swedish solar developer – bought the 475MW Huittinen solar farm in Finland from Finnish PV developer SAJM Holding Oy. It is one of the country’s largest solar plants.