Offshore wind power for Finland
Several Finnish companies are ready to invest in offshore wind power farms in the Botnia Bay. The planned projects would produce as much as a nuclear power plant, Finnish media reports.
Finnish state-controlled Fortum has reserved two offshore sites in Kemi and Simo with a combined potential output of 1,300 megawatts. A single large windmill has an output of 3-4 megawatts, so hundreds of them would be set up in the area. The construction of a single windmill at sea would cost an estimated EUR two million, Helsingin Sanomat reports. Also Helsinki Energy and the Vaasa-based Etelä-Pohjanmaan Voima (EPV) said that they were planning to work together on two areas in the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia with outputs of 500 to 1,000 megawatts each. At the same time, the energy companies say that electricity consumer prices should increase in order to make the offshore plants more viable.
