Finnish wind energy on the way up

Finland has one of the lowest amounts of wind energy capacity in Europe but the situation could be changing. Anni Mikkonen from the Finnish Wind Energy Association tells us why…

Finland’s target for 2020 is to meet 38% of the country’s energy consumption with renewable energies. The main renewable energy sources to meet this target are biomass, wind power and hydro power. In the national renewable energy action plan, the target for wind is 2,500 MW in installed capacity. It is not much compared to the leading wind energy countries in Europe, but it is an ambitious target for a country that has currently got a very modest wind energy capacity – only 198 MW.

So far construction has been extremely slow in Finland, but there will be a change in speed from this year onwards since the feed-in-tariff was implemented in March 2011 and work to remove administrative barriers has started. About 100 MW worth of wind power will be installed this year, which is a good start!

The rise in interest in the Finnish wind power market could also be seen at the EWEA 2012 Annual Event held in Copenhagen last month. There were at least 14 Finnish companies exhibiting – that must have been a record! There were also plenty of Finnish conference and exhibition delegates listening to the interesting presentations and making important connections. It seemed that wherever you went there was always a Finn around the corner!

The Finnish Minister of Economics, Jyri Häkämies, who is also in charge of energy issues, visited the exhibition on the final morning of the event. The visit was a very important signal to the industry showing that there is a really strong political will in Finland to reach the 2020 targets. Minister Häkämies talked about the importance of wind power in meeting the Finnish 2020 targets and said that administrative barriers will be removed.

Like in every other market, wind power in Finland still faces challenges. One of these could be local acceptance. However, public acceptance of wind energy is very high – according to a survey carried out by the Federation of Energy Industries in spring 2012, over 89% of Finns would like to see more wind power installed. The communications academy organised by EWEA after the conference gave participants excellent ideas on how to work with local people to gain local acceptance. For example, I was really interested to learn about a number of studies the Canadian Wind Energy Association have made on wind energy and health. Moreover, information I gained from wind farm developers and other national associations will help me write a code of conduct for Finnish developers later this year.

By Anni Mikkonen, Finnish Wind Power Association

source: http://www.ewea.org

Keep your landscape free of noise!

Soundim Rail innovative solutions are all about the noise barrier for the silent landscape.

In June 2013 the City of Tampere and the Traffic Authority of Finland completed the test project in Järvensivu, Tampere, Finland.

Soundim Rail is a new type of railroad noise barrier with innovative solutions, which revolutionizes the railroad noise prevention at various levels. The inclinable Soundim Rail facilitates the barrier installation and considerably simplifies special transportations and rail maintenance. The new barrier is only 85 cm high, so the railroad environment landscape stays almost undisturbed.

The barrier was built on both sides of the track, the other side being 0.85m high and the other side 1.1m high. The lenght of the barrier is 2*140m.

Source: http://www.soundim.fi/gb/

REPERCUSIONES POR EL POSIBLE AUMENTO DE PRODUCCION DE LA EX BOTNIA

El canciller Héctor Timerman advirtió que “las relaciones entre Argentina y Uruguay están por encima de los intereses de una empresa”. El intendente del departamento uruguayo de Río Negro, Omar Lafluf, dijo que “hay que tratar de acordar la solución” con los argentinos.

“Las relaciones entre Argentina y Uruguay están por encima de los intereses de una empresa”, afirmó ayer el canciller Héctor Timerman y ratificó así el rechazo argentino al pedido de la firma finlandesa UPM de aumentar la producción de celulosa en la planta que opera en Fray Bentos. El intendente del departamento uruguayo de Río Negro, Omar Lafluf, sostuvo que “Uruguay no va a resolver aisladamente” y consideró que “hay que tratar de acordar la solución” con Argentina. “No quiero que se corten los puentes de nuevo –manifestó–, ni que se llegue a la Corte de La Haya.

A la espera del visto bueno del Estado uruguayo, la pastera Botnia-UPM está temporalmente inactiva tras agotar la cuota de producción anual en el período en curso. “El reinicio de las operaciones está previsto para el 25 de septiembre, sujeto a la aprobación para incrementar la producción de 1,1 a 1,3 millón de toneladas”, anunció la semana pasada. Sin embargo, Argentina ratificó que no dará su autorización, la cual es necesaria según lo estipula el Estatuto del Río Uruguay, que regula las actividades que puedan afectar las condiciones ambientales en zona binacional.

En el gobierno de Uruguay consideran que la demanda de la pastera Botnia-UPM fue presentada ante la binacional Comisión Administradora del Río Uruguay y que a fines de este mes vence el plazo para que Argentina oficialice su objeción en el organismo. El presidente José “Pepe” Mujica adelantó el viernes pasado que tiene la decisión “en su cabeza”, pero que la hará pública una vez que la “comunique a las partes”.

Lafluf planteó como una solución intermedia “adelantar” el ciclo productivo de la planta de celulosa con el tope productivo vigente. “Que una vez que termine el mantenimiento, el 22 de septiembre, la empresa arranque a producir con el tope actual, hasta agosto del año próximo”, propuso. Explicó que es “para no mandar trabajadores al seguro de desempleo, como amenazó la firma, y que la empresa siga produciendo”.

“Se pretende que UPM no de-sarrolle su capacidad de producción, en una empresa que ha demostrado ser eficiente, seria y amigable con el medio ambiente”, criticaron comerciantes de Fray Bentos agrupados en la Acirn. Pidieron al Estado uruguayo que “defienda la soberanía” frente a “la prepotencia e intolerancia de nuestros vecinos argentinos”. “No aceptamos amenazas como el corte del turismo”, destacaron.

Fuente: Página 12 - Argentina

Wind Power Research in Focus 2013

TIME AND PLACE

16-17th of September, Chalmers kårhus, Gothenburg

PARTICIPANTSThe conference is aimed at researchers, administrators in planning and permitting processes, developers, consultants, operators in utilities and manufacturing companies.

PROGRAM
Day 1 has a Nordic theme and speakers from all Nordic countries are invited. The topics will range from ice on blades, electric power systems, maintenance offshore, wind power in forested areas, noise from wind power, effects on wildlife and golden eagles.

Day 2 will have two parallel sessions with technical and environmental focus respectively.

Overview program

Detailed program

PRICE
1000 SEK for both days. There will be an additional fee of 350 SEK for the evening buffet day 1.

REGISTRATION
Register to the conference at vif2013.axaco.se

Last day to register is the 4th of September.

ORGANISERS: Research program for Cold climate, Vindval, Vindforsk and Swedish Wind Power Technology Centre (SWPTC)

Analysis of wind turbine statistics in Finland

Few years ago Anders Stenberg has written a Master´s thesis on the development of wind power until today (2010) and the future wind power scenario in Finland. Pointing out there will be a large increase in wind power according to the target. This development will also have an influence on compiling of statistics as the amount of data grows. 

The thesis also deals with the operational principle of a wind turbine and the most important components of the system.

Main finding is probably that the main causes of downtime are failures in the gear and the hydraulic system. The largest number of failures arises in the hydraulic system. The downtime is spread evenly over the life time of a turbine with about 200 hours of downtime per year and turbine with the exception of the oldest turbines
in the survey. This was due to an increase in downtime in the hydraulic system and tip brakes of older turbines. This result indicates a rise in downtime as the turbine reaches an age of 15 years.

Statistics of production have been compiled since 1992 and the failure statistics since 1996. The failure statistics between years 1996 and 2008 are examined and contains data from 72 wind turbines.

The thesis (in Swedish) is available here: (pdf) 

Summer holidays...

We are enjoying the summer time until 31.7
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The SmartGrids ERA-Net launches a new call for applied research projects

In order to support joint European research on smart grid issues, the SmartGrids ERA-Net launches its 3^rd call for research projects. The following countries are taking part in the call: Croatia, Denmark, Latvia, Poland, Norway, Sweden and Turkey. The total funding budget is set at € 3 600 000.

Focus areas of the 3^rd SmartGrids ERA-Net call are:

• Efficient operation of active distribution networks;
• Smart retail and consumer technologies and services, including smart metering hereunder costs & benefits, customer aspects, user behaviour, and flexible demand and energy management strategies in an energy market environment;
• Information and communication technology (ICT) tools for smart grids;
• Interface between the grid and the end-users, including aspects related to security, privacy, regulation and business cases;
• Storage and balancing.

Who can apply?

Within the framework of the national limitations, the 3^rd SmartGrids ERA-Net call is open to any resident researcher/eligible institution/business within the participating countries – complying in each case with the national regulations on public funding, unless specified otherwise by the specific programme. The call has a distributed fund where each country funds its own researchers.
The projects should involve cooperation/task sharing between the project partners. The project proposals must include partners from at least three of the countries participating in the call (Croatia, Denmark, Latvia, Poland, Norway, Sweden and Turkey).
The call has a two-step application process:

1. Each consortium submits a pre-proposal. These will be evaluated by experts in the funding bodies or involved programmes. Some pre-proposals will be selected for the second stage.
2. The chosen consortia are then invited to submit full proposals. Final selection is made by the national funding agencies after the full proposals have been evaluated by independent international experts.

Deadline for submitting pre-proposals is 2 September 2013, 17:00 CET.
The pre-proposals and the full proposals are to be written in English and submitted via an electronic form available on the SmartGrids ERA-Net website. Proposals will be rejected if they have not been submitted correctly in due time.


More information can be found in the published call text, and on the SmartGrids ERA-Net website www.eranet-smartgrids.eu.

Source: Nordic Energy Research