Almost 2,000 visitors attended the various events of Vaasa EnergyWeek, which was organised for the second time this March. EnergyWeek is a series of events promoting the energy technology cluster in the Vaasa region and the EnergyVaasa brand, and once again this year it succeeded in filling the city’s hotels and being a visible part of the cityscape.

Vaasa EnergyWeek 2013 started with the Energy and Environment Seminar, which was organised for the ninth time. Its purpose is to inspire nationwide discussion about important issues concerning energy and the environment, and this year almost 300 guests gathered in the assembly room of Vaasa City Hall to listen to topical speeches about energy production in the future. 

Organised for the third time, the international Vaasa Wind Exchange event once again brought together experts and interested parties in the wind power field as a part of the Vaasa EnergyWeek. Held at the beautiful City Hall, Vaasa Wind Exchange was a two-day event. The first day with its lectures and trade fair stands was aimed at the general public, while the second day was reserved for business meetings between the exhibitors. 

This year, the two-day long Renewable Efficient Energy III Conference (REE), organised by the Vaasa Energy Institute (VEI), focused on renewable energy and wind power. The introductions and discussions of the first conference day concentrated on engine and motor technology, biofuels, geothermal energy and electric power networks. The second day was dedicated to wind power, with the introductions focusing specifically on noise reduction in wind power plants, as well as on wind turbines and wind speed measurements.

The Radisson Blu Royal Hotel’s conference facilities were full to the brim when the Energy Match Metal event, organised for the second time in connection with Vaasa EnergyWeek, brought together representatives from the energy, engineering and metal industries to listen to presentations on subcontracting and to make contacts. The event was organised following the principles of matchmaking, and after the formal presentations the representatives of the 40 companies that participated in the event had an opportunity to meet other company representatives in a total of 10 meetings. All in all, 320 meetings were organised during the afternoon.

In March 2013, Vaasa EnergyWeek took its first in-depth look at energy-efficient construction. The domestic and foreign speakers at the Energy & Building Seminar discussed examples of low energy and passive house construction in Finland and other Nordic countries.

Vaasa EnergyWeek 2013, the international event for the energy industry, is drawing near. Inspired by last year’s success, this is the second EnergyWeek organised, taking place next week from the 18th to the 21st March, in the heart of the most significant energy technology cluster in the Nordic countries. The event will bring together the top names in the industry in the beautiful city of Vaasa. The seminars and other events organised during EnergyWeek will offer information and advice from top experts on important issues in the industry, of interest to energy companies, decision-makers and many others. This information will include discussions about the present state of the industry, as well as future trends.

A long time researcher of biofuels at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the University of Jyväskylä, Doctor Margareta Wihersaari has completed her doctoral thesis on the energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions of the production chains of bioenergy. Wihersaari started work as Professor of Energy Technology at the Åbo Akademi University’s Vaasa campus in early November last year. She will be talking about bioenergy and its production chains on 19th March at the Renewable Efficient Energy III Conference, which is a part of Vaasa EnergyWeek.

Increasing the energy efficiency of buildings effectively decreases the carbon footprint, especially here in the north, where a large part of the energy consumed is spent on heating. For the present, Finland is slightly behind its Nordic neighbours in issues concerning energy efficiency, but we are working hard to catch up.

Issue 6, Januray 2013

The Minister of Economic Affairs, Mr Jan Vapaavuori, is the official Patron of the Vaasa EnergyWeek 2013

Fossil fuels are still running our globe and without oil and coal the world would simply stop.  The earth’s population, people’s consumption and with it the need for energy and raw materials keep growing and this causes serious challenges for the battle against climate change, increases environmental emissions and causes  inadequacy of fossil fuels.

At the end of 2012, district heat production in Vaasa made a significant turnabout in its energy focus when Vaskiluodon Voima Oy’s new gasification plant and Westenergy Oy’s waste incineration plant were completed. A producer of electricity and district heat, Vaskiluodon Voima pressed the world’s largest biomass gasification plant into service. Due to this 140 MW power plant, 25% to 40% of the coal can be replaced by domestic biofuels.

Some Small and Medium Enterprises Are Established for the International Market from the Start

Small and open economies like Finland need enterprises that work well in the international market. Usually, an enterprise’s process of internationalisation is spurred on by its growth, but for some the domestic market is too small right from the beginning. Economic decision-makers would like to see more businesses in Finland that are born global, but unfortunately there is no ready-made formula for bringing them about.

Finland has undertaken to build more wind power plants by 2020, worth a total capacity of 2,500 MW, in addition to its other projects involving the production of renewable energy. This represents a considerable increase in the country’s production of wind power energy when compared to the 145 wind power plants that were in operation in August 2012, whose combined output was just 234 MW.

The indicator lights on the protection relays set side by side in substation simulators glow, as Jari Koski, lecturer at Vaasa University of Applied Sciences, checks that the relays are correctly programmed. There is still work to be done, but it won’t be long until tests can be begun at the Technobothnia Research Centre to find out how protection relays from different manufacturers function together in practice in the transmission and distribution of electrical energy, and in decentralised energy production. While relays observe the IEC 61850 Standard on data transfer, their ability to work together is far from guaranteed. This ground-breaking research by Vaasa-based experts in the energy field will vitally reduce the problems between different manufacturers’ protection products and consequently simplify the data transfer and communication of smart grids needed in substation automation and decentralised energy production.

Lately, the fields of energy and environmental technology have been seen as the most potential successors to the current giants of Finnish exports, the mobile technology and forest industries. The export figures of the industry specialising in renewable energy production and energy efficiency have been very positive. New energy investments are being made in far-off countries as well as in Europe, where MEUR 640 will be invested over the next eight years just in improving energy efficiency.

Vaasa Engineering Oy (VEO) has developed an innovation that offers cost-effectiveness to the manufacturing and use of new wind power turbines. The men behind the new excitation solution, Hannu Erkkilä, Tuomo Peltoniemi and Markus Hattara, received the national innovation award for their innovation in January 2012.

The first Vaasa EnergyWeek, held from 19^th to 22^nd March, will not be the last of its kind, because both the participants and organisers were extremely happy with what the event had to offer. The three events that were held during the same week – the national Energy and Environment Seminar, the Vaasa Wind Exchange event and Vaasa Energy Institute’s Renewable Efficient Energy II Conference – assembled between them almost 1,400 satisfied visitors from the Vaasa region, elsewhere in Finland and abroad.

A new geothermal energy park will investigate energy storing and exploitation

Esa Härmälä from the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy:

The targets which are in accordance with the European Union’s climate and energy package obligate member states to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent, to increase the proportion of renewable energy to 20 percent of consumption and to improve energy efficiency by 20 percent, all by 2020. Finnish energy policies are mainly derived from these targets and domestic circumstances.

March is drawing near and with it, Vaasa EnergyWeek. The expectations of both organisers and participants are high. The wind power event called Vaasa Wind Exchange, organised for the second time, will be held on Tuesday the 20^th March. This year the event will be run by Pohjanmaan Expo.

The cost of energy governs the technical development of wind power plants. In designing and building the new generation of wind power plants, the goal is to achieve more energy while keeping the total costs as low as possible. The objective is to minimise the operating and servicing costs of the plant’s whole life cycle, as well as the building costs.

Our society is dependent on electricity. This is especially clear after there have been disruptions in the distribution of electricity for some reason, as there have with storms this winter.

In the Vaasa region and throughout the west-coast area of Finland known as Ostrobothnia, things are better than average: businesses are doing well, the employment rate is amongst the best in Finland and the development of the region’s gross domestic product is better than in the rest of the country as a whole. Population has also grown over the last few years, although more people are still needed.

The proximity of current and potential partners, excellent opportunities for wind power construction, a welcoming atmosphere and open cooperation discussions – these are some of the reasons that prompted the German Prokon Energiesysteme GmbH, specialising in the production methods of renewable energy, to choose Vaasa as the location of its new subsidiary.