On Tuesday, near the banks of the Baltic Sea, Finland held a goodbye party of sorts that doubled as a victory celebration for the renewable-energy age.
Coloured smoke billowed out of the 150-metre tall chimney of the Salmisaari coal-fired plant, open since 1984, as it was officially decommissioned, marking a new milestone in the Nordic country’s energy transition. Now, coal generation makes up less than 1% of Finland’s energy mix, down from 23% in 2003.
The Salmisaari farewell comes four years ahead of the country’s self-imposed deadline for eliminating coal-based energy production and heralds another trend. As coal has wound down, wind has powered up: wind energy now covers one-quarter of Finland’s electricity needs.
“Finland’s case confirms that accelerating the shift from coal to clean energy is in countries’ self-interest, as it increases energy security and fuels economic growth,” said Julia Skorupska, head of the secretariat of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), an advocacy group. PPCA was created in 2017 by Canada and the United Kingdom with the goal of speeding the transition from coal to clean power around the world; it now has 180 members. Last year, in one of the fastest coal power phase-outs in the world, the United Kingdom closed its last coal power plant, in Nottinghamshire, making the British power system coal-free for the first time in almost 150 years.
Finland’s coal phase-out has been made possible by a combination of laws and investments, including €22.8 million earmarked toward “innovative energy technologies” in 2021. In 2019, the Finnish government announced it would ban coal-based energy by 2029, “sending a strong signal to utilities and investors,” according to the advocacy agency Beyond Fossil Fuels.
A recent report found that wind power is now “the biggest enabler of Finland’s economic growth,” accounting for 44% of all projected green industrial investment, or €26 billion.
“Wind alone has more than covered the gap left by coal and fossil gas, proving that renewable energy can be scaled fast, particularly when government policy creates the right conditions,” said Cyrille Cormier, deputy campaign director at Beyond Fossil Fuels, in a statement.
In a statement, Sari Multala, Finland’s minister of climate and the environment, lauded Helen Ltd., the owner of Salmisaari, for its “determination to end the energy use of coal” and noted the “far-sighted” wisdom of enshrining into law a coal phase-out that seemed ambitious at the time. “Imported fossil energy has been replaced with cleaner solutions that reduce climate emissions, while consumers benefit from lower energy prices,” Multala said.
Salmisaari was Helen’s last operating coal plant. Its closure means that the company’s carbon dioxide emissions will decrease by 50% compared to 2024. The move also means that the city of Helsinki’s emissions drop by 30%. In a statement, Helen said it will now produce heat with heat pumps while relying on wind, nuclear, hydro and solar power for electricity generation.
“Our success is an excellent indication that, at best, the clean transition, cost efficiency and Finland’s security of supply can go hand in hand,” Helen CEO Olli Sirkka said in a statement.
