National grid prepares for offshore wind power projects

In the spring of 2024, national grid company Fingrid published a report on areas that it considers possible for connecting offshore wind power projects to the grid in the 2030s.

Fingrid identified five areas along the west coast and one southern sea area as possible connections. The connections would be located in Ulvila, Närpiö, Vaasa, Raahe and Raisio. In Southern Finland, the Inkoo area is also considered a possible connection point if offshore wind power construction is permitted in southern sea areas.

The underlying assumption of the study was that Finland’s electricity consumption would almost double by 2035, especially as industry investments and electrified processes.

“In Finland, from the Government programme on down, the starting point is that offshore wind power is needed and will be built on market terms. The national grid company is on the right track by opening a dialogue with market actors concerning the grid connections and their future development needs,” says Tuomas Vanninen, Manager, Technical Planning at Metsähallitus Property Development.

Connection points near the shore

Metsähallitus considers it important that connection points should be located as close to the shore as possible.

“If every developer of an offshore wind power project investigates three to ten mainland route alternatives in the same area with an environmental impact assessment, this will result in a great deal of overlapping work. In addition, this puts a burden on landowners, authorities and environmental impact assessors, and there is a risk that project development will be stifled,” explains Vanninen.

Locating connection points close to the shore would also reduce the number of east-west transmission lines of project developers and intersections with north-south routes.

Additional capacity

In Metsähallitus’ view, low connection capacity in relation to its need has been identified particularly in the northern Raahe area. Several offshore wind power projects are already planned for the area, and the Raahe connection would thus be the only option for projects farther north.

“Of course, we understand the challenges that the grid builder faces: The distance from the area to the large power consumption areas of Southern Finland is the longest there is, and more investment euros are needed,” says Vanninen.

Connection-specific restriction should be examined

The capacity per connection point proposed by the national grid company is equal to the single-failure criterion, i.e. 1.3 GW.

Metsähallitus estimates that the development, scaling and profitability requirements of offshore wind power technology will rapidly increase the size of projects. Due to these factors, a station-specific 1.3 GW restriction and the development needs of the grid should also be assessed from this perspective.

We share information and expertise

“We are happy to share our expertise and experience in identifying restrictions on the use of sea areas. Metsähallitus already has experience in investigating possibilities for using area waters, and we believe that it would also be useful in this work,” assures Vanninen.