Hydro­gen in Oulu

Why Oulu region

Wel­come to Oulu, the north­ern hydro­gen hub. The Oulu region is home to over 400,000 peo­ple and almost 50,000 busi­ness­es.

Oulu is an inter­na­tion­al tech hub and uni­ver­si­ty city where one of every three inhab­i­tants has a uni­ver­si­ty degree. Green mol­e­cules – hydro­gen and cli­mate-friend­ly hydro­gen derivates – are fuelling our lat­est growth wave.

Oulu’s GDP per capi­ta is almost €40,000 – well above the EU aver­age. It invests more in research and devel­op­ment than any oth­er Finnish city.
Here are eight rea­sons why you should estab­lish your hydro­gen indus­try in the Oulu region:

  1. The Oulu region has abun­dant, afford­able renew­able ener­gy sources.
  2. Hydro­gen infra­struc­ture will con­nect Oulu to the rest of Europe.
  3. Bio­genic car­bon diox­ide is avail­able in Oulu.
  4. Three major sources ensure abun­dant water.
  5. Oulu’s port, rail­ways and roads are a part of the TEN‑T core net­work.
  6. Oulu’s uni­ver­si­ties and large R&D invest­ments attract skilled work­ers.
  7. Oulu’s diverse ecosys­tem draws in sub­con­trac­tors and cus­tomers.
  8. Finnish and EU sources pro­vide fund­ing.

  • Finnish elec­tric­i­ty is among the cheap­est in Europe.
  • The Oulu region is the largest pro­duc­er of renew­able elec­tric­i­ty in Fin­land.
  • Finland’s most robust grids are locat­ed in the Oulu region.

Finnish elec­tric­i­ty is among the cheap­est in Europe. In the first half of 2024, the price of elec­tric­i­ty for non-house­hold cus­tomers in Fin­land (€0.0939 per kilo­watt hour [kWh]) was low­er than any­where else in the EU.

The Oulu region is the largest pro­duc­er of renew­able elec­tric­i­ty in Fin­land. In August 2024, 37% of Finland’s wind tur­bines were locat­ed in the Oulu region. More­over, wind and solar pow­er pro­duc­tion are increas­ing.

Excel­lent con­di­tions for wind and solar pow­er

The Oulu region is an excel­lent envi­ron­ment for gen­er­at­ing wind pow­er. The pre­vail­ing wind direc­tion is from the sea. The low pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty allows for build­ing wind pow­er facil­i­ties with­out sig­nif­i­cant­ly dis­turb­ing peo­ple, and the tax sys­tem allows wind pow­er to ben­e­fit the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Total solar irra­di­ance in south­ern Fin­land is sim­i­lar to that in Cen­tral Europe. The annu­al irra­di­ance is also high in Oulu: around 1 000kWh/m²–1 100kWh/m² per year.

In addi­tion to har­ness­ing wind and solar pow­er, the Oulu region pro­duces elec­tric­i­ty through the City of Oulu’s elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion, dis­trict heat­ing pow­er plants, pow­er plants con­nect­ed to indus­tri­al plants and hydro­elec­tric pow­er plants on the Iijo­ki and Oulu­jo­ki rivers.

Func­tion­ing elec­tric­i­ty net­work could be extend­ed

Since Fin­land has only one price zone for elec­tric­i­ty trans­mis­sion, cheap renew­able elec­tric­i­ty is avail­able from oth­er regions if need­ed.

The Oulu region has reli­able elec­tric­i­ty trans­mis­sion because it has the most robust elec­tric­i­ty con­nec­tions in Fin­land. Fin­grid man­ages sev­er­al con­nec­tions to the nation­al grid. Fingrid’s 400-kilo­volt sub­sta­tions clos­est to the large indus­tri­al areas are the Isokan­gas sub­sta­tion in the north and Pikkar­ala and Pyhäselkä in south­east­ern Oulu. All sub­sta­tions have the poten­tial for 1,000 megawatts of new con­nec­tion capac­i­ty. Addi­tion­al­ly, the Oulu area is home to the local grids of Oulun Ener­gia Sähköverkot, Haukiputaa Elec­tric­i­ty Coop­er­a­tive, Etelä-Poh­jan­maan Voiman Aluev­erkko and Caruna.

Fin­grid and oth­er elec­tric­i­ty net­work oper­a­tors are cur­rent­ly expand­ing the elec­tric­i­ty net­work in the Oulu region to ensure that the net­work can con­tin­ue to accom­mo­date the rapid­ly expand­ing elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion.

Learn more:

  • Gas­grid Fin­land plans to build hydro­gen trans­port infra­struc­ture in the Oulu region.
  • Once com­plet­ed, the new inter­na­tion­al hydro­gen pipeline net­work will con­nect the Oulu region’s hydro­gen pro­duc­ers to hydro­gen users, such as the steel indus­try in Swe­den and the chem­i­cal indus­try in Ger­many.
  • The hydro­gen pipeline net­work will link Oulu hydro­gen users to pro­duc­ers else­where on the Baltic Sea coast, ensur­ing a con­tin­u­ous and sta­ble sup­ply of hydro­gen at sta­ble prices.

Gas­grid Fin­land, the gas trans­mis­sion net­work com­pa­ny respon­si­ble for Finland’s nation­al hydro­gen infra­struc­ture, plans to build a hydro­gen mar­ket plat­form and a pipeline to trans­port hydro­gen through the Oulu region. This infra­struc­ture will form part of Finland’s nation­al hydro­gen net­work, which will com­prise more than 1,000km of onshore hydro­gen pipelines. More­over, inter­na­tion­al pipeline con­nec­tions will be built.

Finland’s nation­al hydro­gen infra­struc­ture is part of an inter­na­tion­al hydro­gen pipeline net­work in the Baltic Sea region. When ful­ly com­plet­ed, the planned hydro­gen infra­struc­ture will con­nect hydro­gen pro­duc­ers and con­sumers in the Oulu region – via Swe­den and the west­ern Baltic Sea, the Baltic States and Poland – to Ger­many and the rest of indus­tri­alised Europe.

Hydro­gen gas infra­struc­ture from Oulu to Cen­tral Europe

Gas­grid Fin­land is cur­rent­ly study­ing two alter­na­tive routes for an under­ground hydro­gen gas pipeline through the Oulu region. Both route options run close to Oulu from the east of the city. Both options pro­vide func­tion­ing hydro­gen gas pipeline con­nec­tions to all key areas of the region’s hydro­gen indus­try.

In onshore areas, the gas pipeline is about 1.5m under­ground. The required right of way for the pipeline is about 5m to 10m wide.

Gas­grid Fin­land aims to have the hydro­gen mar­ket and infra­struc­ture oper­a­tional in Fin­land by the ear­ly 2030s. Hydro­gen net­work licens­ing is expect­ed to start in 2025.

Addi­tion­al read­ing:

  • In the Oulu region, bio­genic car­bon diox­ide (CO2) is avail­able for pro­duc­ing hydro­gen deriv­a­tives.
  • The pulp and paper indus­try and com­bined elec­tric­i­ty and heat pro­duc­tion (CHP) pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant sources of bio­genic CO2.
  • Oulu Ener­gy aims to start cap­tur­ing CO2 in 2030.

The most sig­nif­i­cant sources of CO2 for fur­ther hydro­gen pro­cess­ing in the Oulu region are locat­ed near the Oulu port area and the Takalaani­la indus­tri­al area. The region’s sig­nif­i­cant sources of bio­genic CO2 are large pulp and paper indus­try units (1+ mega­tonnes [Mt] of CO₂ per year) and Oulu Energy’s Bio-pow­er plant (0.6 Mt CO₂ per year).

Sto­ra Enso, which oper­ates in the Nuot­tasaari har­bour area, is com­mit­ted to reduc­ing emis­sions in its own pro­duc­tion and through­out its val­ue chain in accor­dance with the Sci­ence Based Tar­gets initiative’s 1.5‑degree devel­op­ment path. More­over, as a sig­na­to­ry of the Cli­mate Pledge, Sto­ra Enso is com­mit­ted to pro­duc­ing net-zero car­bon emis­sions by 2040.

Three major sources ensure abun­dant water

  • In the Oulu region, riv­er water, ground­wa­ter and sea­wa­ter pro­vide suf­fi­cient water for indus­tri­al needs.
  • Oulu Water­works is ready to coop­er­ate in build­ing the water infra­struc­ture indus­try needs.

Oulu Water­works is a munic­i­pal util­i­ty owned by the City of Oulu. It is respon­si­ble for Oulu’s domes­tic water sup­ply and waste­water treat­ment. Every day, Oulu Water­works sup­plies its cus­tomers with 33,000m3 of good-qual­i­ty domes­tic water from its net­works.

Sev­er­al water sources ensure the sup­ply of water

The avail­abil­i­ty of sev­er­al sources of water ensures a secure water sup­ply in Oulu. In the future, Oulu Water­works will organ­ise water sup­ply from two dif­fer­ent sources, one of which is ground­wa­ter.

Riv­er water avail­abil­i­ty is already excel­lent in Laani­la and Oritkari. In the future, it will also be excel­lent in Pikkar­ala. More­over, Oulu Water­works is cur­rent­ly inves­ti­gat­ing how to organ­ise the large water sup­ply in Pyyryväi­nen.

Learn more:

Waterinfo.fi: Region­al water sit­u­a­tion Kain­uu and Oulu-Koil­lis­maa

Oulu Water­works: About Oulu Water­works

  • The Port of Oulu is the largest gen­er­al port on the Both­n­ian Bay and is open 24/7 year-round.
  • Oulu’s port, rail­ways and roads are part of the Trans-Euro­pean Trans­port Net­work (TEN‑T) core net­work.
  • Oulu Air­port is the third largest air­port in Fin­land in terms of pas­sen­ger num­bers.

The Port of Oulu and the main rail and road routes through the Oulu region are part of the TEN‑T core net­work, as defined by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion. The TEN‑T is a planned net­work of roads, rail­ways, air­ports and water infra­struc­ture in the EU main­tained to han­dle high vol­umes of freight and pas­sen­gers.

The Port of Oulu has three sec­tions: Oritkari, Nuot­tasaari and Vihreäsaari. Oritkari main­ly han­dles con­tain­ers and for­est indus­try prod­ucts. Nuot­tasaari han­dles raw mate­ri­als for the for­est indus­try. Vihreäsaari han­dles liq­uid fuels and bulk prod­ucts.

The chan­nel to the Port of Oulu has a draught of 12.50m. The port can accom­mo­date ships with a dead­weight ton­nage of up to 65,000 tonnes (t) and a length of up to 230m. The three sec­tions of the Port of Oulu have a total of 1,460m of quays. The Port of Oulu has excel­lent road and rail con­nec­tions.

The Port of Oulu cov­ers an area of 255 hectares. It is, there­fore, unique­ly equipped to meet the needs of its cus­tomers by, for exam­ple, build­ing stor­age and han­dling halls.

Rail­ways con­nect Oulu to all parts of Fin­land

The rail­way hub in the city of Oulu con­nects North­ern Fin­land to the nation­al rail net­work. Fur­ther­more, rail con­nec­tions run­ning through Tornio con­nect Fin­land to Swe­den, although dif­fer­ences in track gauges require chang­ing rolling stock. The Finnish net­work has a track gauge of 1,524mm. Ongo­ing ren­o­va­tions will allow for intro­duc­ing Euro­pean Rail Traf­fic Man­age­ment Sys­tem (ERTMS) sig­nalling at the Oulu yard.

On most of Finland’s net­work, an axle load of 22.5t is per­mit­ted. The max­i­mum per­mit­ted speed is 220km/h for pas­sen­ger trains and 120km/h for freight trains.

Oulu roads are part of Finland’s main roads

One of Finland’s main roads, high­way 4 from Helsin­ki to Utsjo­ki, and the Euro­pean roads E8 and E75 run through Oulu.

Oulu Air­port, the third largest in Fin­land, offers about a dozen flights to Helsin­ki each day.

Learn more:

  • The Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu con­ducts exten­sive mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary hydro­gen research.
  • One in three peo­ple in Oulu has a uni­ver­si­ty degree.
  • Oulu has the largest R&D invest­ment per capi­ta of any Finnish city.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu’s exten­sive mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary hydro­gen research attracts experts to Oulu’s hydro­gen indus­try. The uni­ver­si­ty sup­ports dozens of projects advanc­ing both basic and applied research.

At the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, physi­cists, chemists, chem­i­cal engi­neers, envi­ron­men­tal engi­neers, process met­al­lur­gists and mate­ri­als engi­neers col­lab­o­rate to address the chal­lenges involved in trans­fer­ring, stor­ing and trans­port­ing hydro­gen and in steel indus­try process­es.

Oulu boosts tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment by invest­ing more in R&D than any oth­er city in Fin­land. Accord­ing to Sta­tis­tics Fin­land, Oulu spends almost €3,500 per capi­ta per year on research and devel­op­ment.

Oulu is a long-stand­ing tech­nol­o­gy cen­tre

The Oulu region is home to over 400,000 inhab­i­tants and near­ly 50,000 com­pa­nies. The region’s GDP is €40,000 per capi­ta, com­pared to an EU aver­age of €35,000.

With more than 1,000 infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies employ­ing more than 20,000 peo­ple, the Oulu region has for decades been known for its tech­no­log­i­cal excel­lence.

The city’s size makes it easy for spe­cial­ists to find hous­ing and jobs for their spous­es. Sev­er­al trans­port options link­ing a large city to oth­er parts of the coun­try are impor­tant for many pro­fes­sion­als.

Oulu has a young and high­ly edu­cat­ed pop­u­la­tion

The Oulu region’s pop­u­la­tion is young and high­ly edu­cat­ed. Oulu res­i­dents are on aver­age 39.6 years old, and one in three of them has a uni­ver­si­ty degree.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu has near­ly 15,000 stu­dents and almost 4,000 staff mem­bers. It is large and tech­nol­o­gy-ori­ent­ed and has many doc­tor­al stu­dents. The Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences has almost 10,000 stu­dents and 500 staff mem­bers.

Learn more:

  • Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ence: We are OAMK

  • Tra­di­tion­al hydro­gen pro­duc­tion has already cre­at­ed a hydro­gen busi­ness ecosys­tem in the Oulu region.
  • A hydro­gen inno­va­tion ecosys­tem already exists around the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.

The Oulu region is home to a large, coher­ent ecosys­tem com­pris­ing numer­ous hydro­gen com­pa­nies that sup­port one another’s activ­i­ties. Con­se­quent­ly, the region pro­vides an envi­ron­ment con­ducive to both hydro­gen busi­ness and hydro­gen inno­va­tion.

The ecosys­tem hydro­gen com­pa­nies require already exists in Oulu because the region has expe­ri­ence pro­duc­ing hydro­gen in indus­tri­al scale. Two plants cur­rent­ly pro­duce hydro­gen in Oulu, and oth­er chem­i­cal indus­tries have also been active in the region for decades.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu par­tic­i­pates in research relat­ed to hydro­gen and relat­ed busi­ness areas, such as the green steel and ener­gy effi­cient hydro­gen pro­duc­tion.

Com­pa­nies start­ing up or oper­at­ing in the Oulu region and its sur­round­ing areas include:

  • Hydro­gen pro­duc­ers
  • Syn­thet­ic fuel pro­duc­ers
  • Fer­til­iz­er and oth­er chem­i­cal pro­duc­ers
  • Steel enter­pris­es
  • Elec­tric­i­ty providers
  • Heat users
  • Hydro­gen logis­tics and stor­age busi­ness­es
  • Trans­port and oth­er poten­tial hydro­gen fuel users
  • Con­sult­ing firms
  • Research enti­ties
  • Recruiters

Learn more:

Busi­nes­sOulu: Part­ner for growth and devel­op­ment

  • State grants for busi­ness invest­ment and inno­va­tion are avail­able in Fin­land.
  • Sev­er­al organ­i­sa­tions pro­vide mar­ket-based fund­ing.
  • Fund­ing from var­i­ous EU sources is avail­able for busi­ness­es.

For­eign-owned com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in Fin­land are eli­gi­ble for a wide range of gov­ern­ment and EU incen­tives on an equal foot­ing with Finnish-owned com­pa­nies. For exam­ple, com­pa­nies can apply for invest­ment grants from the Cen­tres for Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment, Trans­port and the Envi­ron­ment (ELY Cen­tres).

Inno­va­tion fund­ing is avail­able from Busi­ness Fin­land. Busi­ness Fin­land pro­vides low-inter­est loans and grants to chal­leng­ing and inno­v­a­tive projects that could lead to glob­al suc­cess sto­ries. Start-ups, SMEs and large com­pa­nies can ben­e­fit from Busi­ness Finland’s incen­tives and fund­ing ser­vices.

Fin­vera and Tesi offer a range of mar­ket-based fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. Finnvera is a spe­cialised financ­ing com­pa­ny owned by the State of Fin­land, and it is Finland’s offi­cial export cred­it agency (ECA). It pro­vides financ­ing for start­ing, grow­ing and inter­na­tion­al­is­ing enter­pris­es and guar­an­tees against risks aris­ing from exports. Tesi, along with a vast net­work of Finnish and inter­na­tion­al investors, makes mar­ket-dri­ven minor­i­ty invest­ments in Finnish com­pa­nies.

Fin­land also offers com­pa­nies tax incen­tives. For instance, Fin­land offers a per­ma­nent tax incen­tive for busi­ness enter­pris­es that con­duct R&D con­sist­ing of a basic deduc­tion (100%) and an addi­tion­al deduc­tion (50%) relat­ed to exist­ing R&D costs and an increased deductible amount that depends on how much the company’s R&D activ­i­ty has grown com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year.

The EU also pro­vides fund­ing for invest­ing com­pa­nies. EU finance is large­ly chan­nelled through the ELY Cen­tres and sup­ports projects devel­op­ing the com­pet­i­tive­ness, oper­a­tional exper­tise and oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment of the SME sec­tor. The ELY Cen­tres focus par­tic­u­lar­ly on start-up busi­ness­es and ser­vice-sec­tor com­pa­nies.

Learn more:

Sites

Green tran­si­tion in large indus­tri­al areas in Oulu

Oulu has four areas that are par­tic­u­lar­ly well suit­ed for hydro­gen pro­duc­tion and for the hydro­gen derivates pro­cess­ing indus­try. Each area has its advan­tages.

Oulu port area (Oritkari, Vihreäsaari and Nuot­tasaari)

  • The port area’s main strength is logis­tics. It is well con­nect­ed by sea, road and rail and already has exten­sive logis­tics infra­struc­ture.

  • The area’s exist­ing indus­tri­al base offers sig­nif­i­cant syn­er­gies.

  • Access to water is assured in the mar­itime area and the huge riv­er Oulu­jo­ki runs through the Port of Oulu.

Read more about the port area.
 Port of Oulu
Oritkarin sata­man vihreän siir­tymän teol­lisu­usalue | Oulun kaupun­ki

Pyyryväi­nen – ”The Oulu North”

  • Pyyryväi­nen has more land avail­able for devel­op­ment than the oth­er areas – allow­ing for larg­er projects. City of Oulu owns 10 km² of land here which is under zon­ing for chem­i­cal indus­tries (T/kem)

  • A rail­way con­nec­tion to the area is planned.

  • Increas­ing the area’s elec­tric­i­ty capac­i­ty is par­tic­u­lar­ly easy.

Read more about Pyyryväi­nen. — Pyyryväisen osayleiskaa­va | Oulun kaupun­ki

Takalaani­la

  • The area’s exist­ing indus­tri­al and ener­gy pro­duc­tion pro­vides a wealth of syn­er­gies.

  • The logis­ti­cal links and oth­er infra­struc­ture built to meet the needs of the indus­tries already oper­at­ing in the area will be imme­di­ate­ly avail­able to the new enter­pris­es.

  • The dis­trict heat­ing net­work and ther­mal stor­age are par­tic­u­lar­ly acces­si­ble in Takalaani­la.

  • Oulun Ener­gia and P2X Solu­tions are col­lab­o­rat­ing on an excit­ing project to build a large indus­tri­al-scale hydro­gen pro­duc­tion plant in Oulu. This plant, planned for the Laani­la indus­tri­al area, will have a capac­i­ty of up to 100 megawatts (MW) and will include an elec­trol­y­sis plant, a car­bon cap­ture plant, and stor­age facil­i­ties for hydro­gen and car­bon diox­ide.

Pikkar­ala – the future poten­tial area

The poten­tial future indus­tri­al area is locat­ed at the cross­roads of elec­tric­i­ty trans­mis­sion links.

The area is not zoned.

The prox­im­i­ty of the Oulu­jo­ki riv­er ensures an abun­dant water sup­ply.

Oulu port area (Oritkari, Vihreäsaari and Nuot­tasaari)

  • The port area’s main advan­tage is logis­tics. It is well con­nect­ed by sea, road and rail and already has con­sid­er­able logis­tics infra­struc­ture.
  • The area’s exist­ing indus­tri­al base offers sig­nif­i­cant syn­er­gies.
  • Access to water is assured in the mar­itime area.

The Port of Oulu area con­sists of three sep­a­rate port areas: the ports of Oritkari and Nuot­tasaari and the Vihreäsaari oil port and asso­ci­at­ed indus­tri­al areas. It offers excel­lent trans­port con­nec­tions by both sea and land. It is locat­ed near the cen­tre of Oulu, in the Oulu­jo­ki estu­ary and on the shores of the Both­n­ian Bay, and it is part of the Trans-Euro­pean Trans­port Net­work (TEN‑T) core net­work. Cur­rent­ly, the shore is being expand­ed by fill.

About 500 ves­sels vis­it the ports each year. The ports han­dle around three mil­lion tonnes of car­go annu­al­ly. The City of Oulu owns the com­pa­ny Port of Oulu.

The ports of Oritkari and Nuot­tasaari are con­nect­ed to the oth­er parts of Fin­land by rail. New tracks will speed up con­nec­tions to Oritkari, improve the effi­cien­cy of freight traf­fic in the area and enhance the func­tion­al­i­ty and safe­ty of the rail­way yard.

Syn­er­gies with oth­er indus­tries

The port area’s loca­tion is ide­al for new projects that would ben­e­fit from syn­er­gies with exist­ing indus­try. The pulp and chem­i­cal indus­tries, among oth­ers, have long oper­at­ed in the area.

The area con­tains sig­nif­i­cant pow­er gen­er­a­tion plants. Two 110-kilo­volt (kV) lines, one of which is owned by Sto­ra Enso, will be locat­ed in the har­bour area. In Oritkari, options for align­ing the hydro­gen pipeline and the 400kV pow­er line have been explored.

Bio­genic car­bon diox­ide sources are locat­ed in the area. Since the area’s indus­try already pro­duces dis­trict heat for the dis­trict heat­ing net­work, waste heat could be used for the net­work. Fur­ther­more, there is a water sup­ply net­work for indus­tri­al needs. The water in the area is fresh brack­ish water, which can be used in var­i­ous ways.

The Oulu port area is suit­able for such facil­i­ties as:

  • Syn­thet­ic fuel pro­duc­tion
  • Bat­tery chem­i­cals pro­duc­tion and bat­tery assem­bly plants
  • Cir­cu­lar econ­o­my parks

The Oulu port area’s spe­cialised advan­tages include:

  • Poten­tial hydro­gen users
  • Syn­er­gy with oth­er indus­tries
  • Easy trans­port of prod­ucts from the port to world mar­kets
  • Ample space for hydro­gen plants
  • Avail­able train tracks and ongo­ing road improve­ments
  • Pos­si­bil­i­ty of feed­ing waste heat into the dis­trict heat­ing net­work

  • The poten­tial future indus­tri­al area is locat­ed at the junc­tion of nation­al elec­tric­i­ty net­works.
  • The prox­im­i­ty of the Riv­er Oulu ensures an abun­dant water sup­ply.

The Pikkar­ala poten­tial indus­tri­al estate is an unde­vel­oped area about 15km from the cen­tre of Oulu. Its loca­tion at the inter­sec­tion of elec­tric­i­ty trans­mis­sion net­works makes it an opti­mal loca­tion for elec­tric­i­ty-inten­sive indus­tries. The Pikkar­ala sub­sta­tion has the poten­tial to accom­mo­date 1,000 megawatts of con­sump­tion. Fur­ther­more, the Pikkar­ala site has been pre-screened for 400-kilo­volt pow­er line align­ment options.

Gasgrid’s pre­lim­i­nary plans for Finland’s nation­al hydro­gen net­work place pipelines close to the Pikkar­ala site. Pre­lim­i­nar­i­ly Pikkar­ala might also be suit­able for under­ground hydro­gen stor­ages.

Pikkar­ala can accom­mo­date a lot of indus­try

In the future Pikkar­ala could be avail­able for use as a green­field site. The area is most­ly sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed coun­try­side. More­over, there is a lot of addi­tion­al pri­vate­ly owned unde­vel­oped land in the area.

Pikkar­ala is main­ly accessed by road. The rail­way runs past Pikkar­ala from the north of the area. The City of Oulu is cur­rent­ly inves­ti­gat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of using the rail link for indus­tri­al pur­pos­es.

The Oulu­jo­ki riv­er runs past Pikkar­ala. Pikkar­ala also has a sig­nif­i­cant aquifer, but its yield is not suf­fi­cient to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase water con­sump­tion.

The area could be suit­able for such facil­i­ties and activ­i­ties as:

  • data cen­tres
  • hydro­gen indus­try facil­i­ties
  • bat­tery indus­try instal­la­tions
  • cir­cu­lar econ­o­my parks
  • elec­tric bat­tery stor­age.

  • The abun­dance of avail­able land allows for devel­op­ment, includ­ing large-scale projects.
  • A rail­way line is planned for the area.
  • Increas­ing the area’s elec­tric­i­ty capac­i­ty would be par­tic­u­lar­ly easy.

Pyyryväi­nen is a new and unde­vel­oped large-scale indus­tri­al area of up to 800 hectares less than 10km from the cen­tre of Oulu. It is locat­ed between the Oulu Välikylä indus­tri­al estate and the Alakylän­tie road. The Pyyryväi­nen area is cur­rent­ly the sub­ject of a sub-plan­ning process to cre­ate a new green tran­si­tion indus­tri­al estate.

A 110-kilo­volt (kV) pow­er line runs through the area. Exist­ing pow­er lines make it pos­si­ble to upgrade from the 400kV sub­sta­tion in Isokan­gas.

A DN300 dis­trict heat­ing line, which serves as a dis­trict heat­ing trans­mis­sion link from Oulu to Kiimin­ki, cross­es the Pyyryväi­nen area. The DN300 dis­trict heat­ing line has a capac­i­ty of about 15 megawatts of dis­trict heat­ing.

Cur­rent­ly, the area can only be accessed by road. How­ev­er, the new mas­ter plan for Oulu des­ig­nates areas for build­ing a ring road con­nec­tion and an indus­tri­al rail­way line in the Pyyryväi­nen area.

The exist­ing small indus­tri­al area of Pyyryväi­nen has a water sup­ply net­work.

The area is suit­able for such facil­i­ties and activ­i­ties as:

  • syn­thet­ic fuel pro­duc­tion
  • ammo­nia and fer­til­iz­er pro­duc­tion
  • bat­tery chem­i­cals pro­duc­tion and bat­tery assem­bly plants
  • cir­cu­lar econ­o­my parks

Spe­cial strengths of Pyyryväi­nen:

  • The site’s size allows for large indus­tri­al plants and hydro­gen stor­age.
  • The area is vast and includes a large amount of land owned by the City of Oulu.
  • The cur­rent 110 kV pow­er line can be upgrad­ed to 400 kV.
  • Fresh water is read­i­ly avail­able in the area.
  • A rail­way line can be built in the area.

  • Exist­ing indus­try and ener­gy pro­duc­tion pro­vide a wealth of syn­er­gies.
  • Logis­ti­cal and oth­er infra­struc­ture built to meet indus­tries’ needs is oper­a­tional and will be imme­di­ate­ly avail­able to the new enter­pris­es.
  • The dis­trict heat­ing net­work and ther­mal stor­age are par­tic­u­lar­ly acces­si­ble in the area, and elec­tric­i­ty trans­mis­sion capac­i­ty could be rein­forced.

Takalaani­la is locat­ed north of the city cen­tre and High­way 20. It is near the Finnish Nation­al Road 4 and has exist­ing rail­road access. Syn­er­gies between the ener­gy and chem­i­cal indus­tries present oppor­tu­ni­ties in the Takalaani­la indus­tri­al area in the cen­tre of Oulu. Some ten hectares of area are avail­able for new projects.

Takalaani­la con­sists pri­mar­i­ly of Tam­in­co Finland’s and Kemira’s fac­to­ry sites, Junnikkala’s sawmill oper­a­tions and areas used by Oulu Ener­gy and small and medi­um-sized indus­tri­al com­pa­nies. Addi­tion­al­ly, Oulu Ener­gy has announced plans to build an indus­tri­al-scale hydro­gen plant in Takalaani­la.

Options for align­ing the hydro­gen pipeline and the 400 kilo­volt (kV) pow­er line have been explored for the Takalaani­la site. The 400kV sub­sta­tions at Pikkar­ala or Isokan­gas could increase Takalaanila’s elec­tric­i­ty capac­i­ty.

Takalaani­la has sev­er­al dis­trict heat­ing plants, a dis­trict heat­ing stor­age bat­tery and an exten­sive dis­trict heat­ing net­work. Takalaani­la is already home to the main dis­trict heat­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works and is thus ide­al for using waste heat for dis­trict heat­ing. The area is also home to gas pipelines for the chem­i­cal indus­try.

The Takalaani­la area has an exist­ing water sup­ply net­work, and the Oulu­jo­ki Riv­er runs next to it.

The area is suit­able for such facil­i­ties and activ­i­ties as:

  • chem­i­cal indus­tries
  • hydro­gen elec­trol­y­sis plants
  • syn­thet­ic fuels man­u­fac­tur­ing

Spe­cial advan­tages:

  • Hydro­gen pro­duc­tion already exists on the site.
  • Sources of bio­genic car­bon diox­ide are avail­able on the site.
  • The site is suit­able for hydro­gen pro­duc­tion.
  • Elec­tric­i­ty trans­mis­sion capac­i­ty exists.
  • There is lit­tle nature pro­tec­tion in the area.
  • Waste heat can be fed into the dis­trict heat­ing net­work.

Projects

Oulun Ener­gia

Site: Takalaani­la

Phase: FEED and envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment

Oulun Ener­gia is plan­ning to build a hydro­gen pro­duc­tion plant in Oulu. The project would include an elec­trol­y­sis plant with a capac­i­ty of up to 100 megawatts (MW), a car­bon cap­ture plant, a hydro­gen and car­bon diox­ide stor­age, and a fur­ther pro­cess­ing plant whose final prod­uct could be e‑methane or e‑methanol, for exam­ple. Part­ner for the project plan­ning is the Finnish P2X Solu­tions.

The project would cre­ate approx­i­mate­ly 200–400 gigawatt hours (GWh) of heat ener­gy per year as a by-prod­uct, which could be trans­ferred to the dis­trict heat­ing net­work, while the oxy­gen could be recov­ered for indus­tri­al use. The heat ener­gy gained would cor­re­spond to approx­i­mate­ly 10–30% of Oulu’s annu­al dis­trict heat­ing demand.

In addi­tion, the project aims to inves­ti­gate the pos­si­bil­i­ties of recov­er­ing the bio­genic flue gas­es from local indus­try and pow­er plants in the fur­ther pro­cess­ing of hydro­gen.

In the project devel­op­ment phase, the fea­si­bil­i­ty of the plant and loca­tion options are exam­ined, and an impact assess­ment is car­ried out. The invest­ment deci­sion is esti­mat­ed to be made in autumn 2025, and the plant could be ready by 2028 at the ear­li­est.

Ver­so Ener­gy

Site: Port of Oulu

Phase: Pre-Study

French com­pa­ny Ver­so Ener­gy has reserved a site for a new plant to pro­duce hydro­gen and syn­thet­ic fuels at the Port of Oulu, north­ern Fin­land.

This land reser­va­tion is only a pre­lim­i­nary deci­sion; a final invest­ment deci­sion will be made at a lat­er stage.

About us

We are here to help you

We are rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the whole Oulu region eager to help your busi­ness suc­ceed. We can guide you to the right address, whether in the Oulu region or else­where in the North. We help hydro­gen indus­try pro­fes­sion­als start and grow their busi­ness­es. Our col­lab­o­ra­tive approach enables us to pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive sup­port tai­lored to your needs.

Here are six exam­ples of how we can help you at dif­fer­ent stages of the invest­ment life­cy­cle:

  1. We can first famil­iarise you with the oppor­tu­ni­ties the region presents. We pro­vide infor­ma­tion to sup­port invest­ment deci­sions and guide our part­ners when they vis­it the region and acquaint them with the area’s var­i­ous stake­hold­ers.
  2. We can intro­duce you to region­al, Finnish and EU fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for your project.
  3. When you need to choose the exact loca­tion for your plant, we can help you with land-use plan­ning and zon­ing.
  4. We can work with you to iden­ti­fy and plan the infra­struc­ture need­ed for your plant and con­nect you with infra­struc­ture builders.
  5. When you are look­ing for sup­pli­ers and cus­tomers in our region, we can help you estab­lish con­tacts in our hydro­gen indus­try ecosys­tem.
  6. When you are look­ing for world-class exper­tise, we can intro­duce you to cut­ting-edge hydro­gen researchers in the Oulu region.

Con­tact us:

JANNE Hietanie­mi

Key Account Direc­tor, Cleantech and Indus­try
janne.hietaniemi@businessoulu.com
+358 40 649 1211

Päivi Lehto

Coor­di­na­tor, Cleantech and Sus­tain­able Indus­try
paivi.lehto@businessoulu.com
+358 40 759 5093

sEP­PO KAIKKO­NEN

Project Man­ag­er
seppo.kaikkonen@businessoulu.com
+358 40 0194 0189

For more infor­ma­tion about Oulu as a city to live and work in, please vis­it oulu.com
For more infor­ma­tion about Oulu as a place worth vis­it­ing, please click Vis­it Oulu

Is there some­thing you’re won­der­ing about? We’re hap­py to help!

Con­tact us

If you are look­ing for part­ners in the cleantech sec­tor, you have come to the right place.

CleantechOulu’s mem­bers work in many dif­fer­ent roles in cleantech val­ue chains, the com­mon goal of which is to reduce adverse effects on the envi­ron­ment from small star­tups to big­ger indus­tri­al play­ers in the field.