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Solar energy and solar electricity in Finland [1]
['Christian Breyer', 'Professor Of Solar Economy']
Date: 2023-09
Realistic goal – bureaucracy permitting
The share of solar power in Finnish electricity production is approaching one percent and won’t stop there: plans are in place to build several solar farms in Finland, each with hundreds of megawatts of production capacity. In addition, Finland’s transmission system operator Fingrid has received wind and solar power connection enquiries amounting to a total capacity of over 100 megawatts. Fingrid assesses that by 2030, the overall solar power plant capacity in Finland may climb to seven gigawatts.
Since 2019, the capacity connected to the main grid has increased by roughly a hundred megawatts annually. In 2022, the growth more than doubled. The Finnish Energy Authority states that in 2022, solar power production amounted to nearly 635 megawatts – more than a 240 megawatt increase compared to the previous year.
Finland still produces fairly little solar electricity compared to leading European countries. The Netherlands, in contrast, produce over seven times more per capita.
"Solar electricity should be taken into account in building architecture because it’s the simplest and most affordable way to produce electricity locally,” says LUT University’s Associate Professor Antti Kosonen.
LUT University has investigated how the profitability of solar electricity could be improved in different types of buildings in Finland. Researchers have debunked myths related to the orientation and dimensioning of solar photovoltaic systems and sales of surplus electricity.
Global capacity has doubled, which has led prices of modules to fall as much as 20 percent. In other words, when capacity doubles, prices plunge one fifth. The strong decline in prices of solar power systems has made solar electricity the least costly new form of electricity production nearly everywhere in the world. A full terawatt was first produced in March 2022, and a similar production peak is expected within the next three years.
Moreover, LUT’s Professor Christian Breyer estimates that a completely carbon-neutral electricity system based on renewable energy sources would be possible by the year 2050. He expects the global solar panel capacity to increase by 440 gigawatts annually up to the year 2030.
In Finland, solar electricity has so far been a financially competitive alternative only if the self-consumption rate has been high. Now, however, the situation is changing, as solar farms are being built to produce electricity to sell directly to the main grid.
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[1] Url:
https://www.lut.fi/en/articles/solar-energy-and-solar-electricity-finland#:~:text=Solar%20energy%20is%20available%20in,installations%20don't%20gather%20snow.
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