Billion dollar projects would require a reliable assessment

From the reader. An unprecedented energy investment boom is underway in Finland. When implemented, new data centers, electric boilers, the electrification of transport and the hydrogen economy can even triple the demand for electricity.

Electricity production is already almost emission-free, but at the same time also very dependent on the weather. This places new demands on the electricity and energy system in terms of, among other things, flexibility, tolerance to disturbances and the ability to recover.

The change in electricity infrastructure has different effects, but the real long-term consequences of the investments are difficult to grasp.

In addition to the electricity system, the changes extend widely, to the ecological and built environment, radar surveillance, tax collections, land use, availability of labor and opportunities for renewal of the economic structure.

Who would reliably assess the importance of the investment?

From the point of view of business operators, it is often a question of choice: if we don’t take on, for example, data center projects, will we get something else instead? Power-to-X solutions, new value chains and regulation are still in the development phase.

That is why it is worthwhile and attractive to promote investments that are realized with certainty – but at the same time tools would be needed to reliably assess the added value they produce.

New energy investments, for example solar panel parks, bring tax revenue to municipalities, but what else do they leave for the region? And how to evaluate the utilization of the data center’s waste heat or the potential of the hydrogen economy?

Without comparable tools, we have to make decisions with insufficient information. The evaluation of the overall effects of the decisions is in danger of being left half-way, and the opportunities for more permanent benefits remain unused.

An independent investigation is now needed

We have enormous renewable energy potential, but no one knows how much of it will actually materialize or how public acceptance and local conditions will drive development.

The identification and overall evaluation of the techno-economic and environmental effects as well as the social, fact-based boundary conditions must be able to be done more thoroughly before the political evaluation.

That’s why we need an independent, transparent and applicable evaluation framework for comparing investments. A frame that enables parts to be fitted into a functional whole. Its creation requires extensive, multidisciplinary cooperation and does not happen in an instant, but this is the only way we can ensure that the projects build sustainable well-being.

If an expert implementation team could be put behind such a project, I would think that STEK, which promotes the energy breakthrough with its funding, would be interested in being involved.

Tapio Koivu

managing director, Electrical engineering and energy efficiency promotion center STEK