

Hydrogen-themed business forum
in Oulu, Finland
14th FEB 2024 at 10 am – 5 pm | Tullisali
Hydrogen in
a sustainable society
Northern Power business forum presents the current state of hydrogen economy for companies and decision-makers, focusing on the utilisation of hydrogen in mobility, logistics, industry, and property management. The hydrogen fleet expo will facilitate the discussions during the networking breaks.
The event is produced by BusinessOulu, the business development organisation of City of Oulu, in cooperation with Oulu Automotive Cluster.
Registration
The event is free of charge.
For catering purposes, all participants must register to the event.
The registration deadline is February 7th, 2024.

We are part of the Nordic Hydrogen Week
13–15 February 2024
Program
Morning session
8.30–10.00 Morning coffee and networking.
Hydrogen fleet expo
10.00 Welcome to Northern Power!
Mr. Janne Hietaniemi, Key Account Director, Industry and Cleantech, BusinessOulu
10.05 Mr. Riku Huttunen, Director General, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland
10.25 Green Hydrogen for hard-to-abate industries.
Ms. Carina Krastel, Managing Director, EIT Inno Energy
10.45 Green Hydrogen Business – solutions to make it sustainable. Mr. Sami Pelkonen, EVP Green Hydrogen, Andritz AG
11.00 Hycamite — Clean Hydrogen Production by Methane Splitting. Ms. Laura Rahikka, Founder, CEO, Hycamite TCD Technologies
11.20 Green Hydrogen investments. Mr. Herkko Plit, CEO, P2X Solutions
11.45–13.15 Lunch and networking. Hydrogen fleet expo.
Note, program may be subject to change.
Afternoon session
13.15 Ms. Sara Kärki, Senior Vice President, Gasgrid Vetyverkot Ltd.
13.35 Ms. Heidi Bergman, Head of Investment Projects, Renewable Hydrogen at Neste.
13.55 Commentary, TBC
14.15 Keynote from event partner / use case
14.45 Coffee break and networking. Hydrogen fleet expo.
15.15 Hydrogen in real estate development.
Mr. Teemu Oksanen, Partner, Aalto Development
Mr. Joakim Berg, CTO, Gen‑H Ltd
15.30 Hydrogen powering persistent aerial monitoring, Kelluu
15.45 The role of education in hydrogen ecosystems
Mr. Michael Dietrich, Founder and General Manager, leXsolar GmbH
16.15 Wrapping up the day. Networking and hydrogen fleet expo.
17.00 End of the event
Speakers

Riku Huttunen
Riku Huttunen is the Director General of Energy at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland since 2015. The Energy Department oversees national and EU energy policy issues as well as coordination of national climate policy measures.
Previously Riku Huttunen has served as Director General of the Finnish Energy Authority and before that in several positions at the Ministry’s Energy Department. He has also worked as Counsellor for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Finland’s Permanent Representation to the European Union in Brussels.

Carina Krastel
Carina Krastel is a sustainable energy engineer with experience in engineering, business, and innovation. Since 2009, she has worked in construction and the industrial gas industry on sustainable energy, air quality, and innovation topics. Prior to joining InnoEnergy, Carina has worked as the Director for New Offers for the Energy Transition for the Large Industry Business of Air Liquide, a French industrial gas company, focusing on offers for green hydrogen and carbon capture solutions.

Heidi Bergman
Heidi Bergman is Head of Investment Projects, Renewable Hydrogen at Neste. Neste creates solutions for combating climate change and accelerating a shift to a circular economy. The company refines waste, residues and innovative raw materials into renewable fuels and sustainable feedstock for plastics and other materials. At the moment, Neste is working on renewable hydrogen projects to decrease the carbon footprint of its refineries and in order to be able to offer its customers high-quality fuels with low emission intensity.
Heidi Bergman is Steering Group member of the Hydrogen Cluster Finland and holds MSc in Chemical Engineering & Industrial Management from the Åbo Akademi and MBA from Aalto University, School of Business.

Sami Pelkonen
Sami Pelkonen has more than two decades of experience in project business for the chemical industry and a strong focus on green hydrogen. Before joining ANDRITZ in 2023, he led the chemical plant builder thyssenkrupp Uhde. Prior to that he was the CEO of the electrolysis company thyssenkrupp Nucera GmbH and held several executive and operational roles in the electrolysis business of thyssenkrupp Uhde.

Laura Rahikka
Laura Rahikka is a founder and the CEO of Hycamite TCD Technologies Oy, a company commercialising the technology to split methane into hydrogen and solid carbon. She is a M.Sc. (Tech.) in Process Engineering and has 20+ years of experience in process and chemical engineering.

Herkko Plit
Herkko Plit is the founder and CEO of P2X Solutions Oy, a forerunner in the Finnish hydrogen and e‑fuel industry. He leads P2X with his visionary attitude and actively participates in the creation of the Finnish and European hydrogen ecosystems in several forums.
Plit is Vice-Chair of the Finnish H2 Cluster and Chair of the World Energy Council ‘WEC’ Finland. Before establishing P2X Solutions, Plit has been in leading positions in companies such as Baltic Connector, Fortum, and TVO. He has also worked as Deputy Director General at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Energy Department, and in the European Commission.

Sara Kärki
Sara Kärki has long experience in the energy sector, especially with new technologies, fuels, business development and R&D. She is currently works as SVP at Gasgrid Finland, responsible for hydrogen infrastructure development. In addition, she acts as COO for Gasgrid Vetyverkot Oy, a Gasgrid affiliate established for advancing hydrogen infrastructure and market development, and cross-border collaboration.
Kärki is also a Co-Chair of the European Hydrogen Backbone (EHB) initiative consisting of a group of 32 energy infrastructure operators, united through a shared vision of a climate-neutral Europe enabled by a thriving renewable and low-carbon hydrogen market.

Joakim Berg
After a 22-year career in electrical planning, Joakim Berg started working with energy efficiency, renewable energy production, self-sufficient properties, and hydrogen as energy storage and for mobility. Today, he has several different hydrogen projects in various stages that stretch from northern Finland and Sweden to India. He has also developed various solutions for sector integrations for real estate and mobility.
Joakim Berg is a member of the ECH2A Round Table for Residential Application and Round Table for Mobility. He is also member of the EU Hydrogen Alliance working groups for permit management and standardisation, member of the Finnish steering group for the NER (Nordic Energy Research) projects, and member of the Nordic NER project part from Sweden H2SIPP.

Janne Hietaniemi
Janne Hietaniemi is a C‑level leader and a seasoned strategist when it comes to building businesses, networks, and platforms within environmental sustainability. He has 25+ years of experience in the cleantech business. Co-founder of several startups. He currently works as a Key Account Director for BusinessOulu.
Moderators

Pia Erkinheimo
Pia Erkinheimo works at The Finnish Climate Fund as a member of the executive team responsible for dealflow and customer relationships. Her background is from companies like Nordea, Nokia, and Capgemini. The European Commission has benefited from her S&T&I experience for 15+ years as innovation expert and jury member, and she has advised he G7 countries in digital technologies, advanced robotics, and data economy.
Besides that, she is a member of the board at Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland, and is or has been involved in half a dozen growth companies either as an investor, board member, or member of the executive team. She is a member of FiBAN, Finnish Business Angels Network where she was also a member of the board in 2018 and regularly writes columns to Tekniikka & Talous (Technology & Economy) weekly professional magazine. Pia is a co-founder of Women in Tech Finland, a network of companies standing for diversity and inclusion.

Simo Kekäläinen
Simo is a multilingual commercialisation and marketing expert with nearly 10 years of experience in the industry. He now works as Chief Marketing Officer of a Finnish health tech company but divides his time and interest with his own host/speaker company called Pretty Good Hosts.
Simo is an aspiring voice actor and TEDxSpeaker who has also appeared in many TV quiz shows in Finland. His dream is to travel the world and someday become the original voice of an animated Disney character.
Northern Power 2023 photos













Arrival at Oulu
Travel by train
Oulu has also frequent Pendolino and InterCity train connections from Helsinki and Tampere, and daily overnight train connection from Helsinki and Turku. The fastest journey to Helsinki takes 5 hours 40 minutes. You can also access Oulu by train from Stockholm (via Haaparanta–Tornio).
Travel by bus
Traveling by bus is also an option and the bus network is vast across the Finland.
Fly to Oulu
Oulu’s airport, the second busiest in Finland. Finnair has multiple daily flights between Oulu and Helsinki. Estimated flight time is just under 1 hour.
Lufthansa has direct flights from Munich (MUC) to Oulu (OUL).
Sat, Feb 10th, 2024 MUC – OUL
08:40 – 12:55
Wed, Feb 14th, 2024 OUL – MUC
17:05 – 19:20
It takes around 20 minutes from the venue Tullisali to Oulu airport
How to get to event venue Tullisali
Address: Tyrnäväntie 16, 90400 Oulu
Tullisali is easy to reach by public transportation: buses from the south stop at Limingantulli P and buses from the north stop at Limingantulli E. Both bus stops are ca. 500 metres from Tullisali, which is located behind the big green Prisma hypermarket. Check the schedules at www.ouka.fi/oulu/public-transport/
If you come with your personal car, there is plenty of parking space around Tullisali free of charge.
Accommodation
With around 10 hotels, 1,300 hotel rooms and 2,700 beds – and over 200 Airbnb overnight options – Oulu offers a variety of accommodation options for all budgets.
Scandic Oulu City and
Scandic Oulu Station
Bookings:
www.scandichotels.fi/?bookingcode=FIARB
De Gamlas Hem
100€ / 1 pers. / night
115€ / 2 pers. / night
tel. +358 75 325 7600
info@degamlashotel.fi
RADISSON BLU HOTELS OULU
tel. +358 (0) 20 123 4730
sales.oulu@radissonblu.com
LAPLAND HOTELS OULU
tel. +358 (0) 881 1110
oulu@laplandhotels.com
NORDIC ART HOTEL LASARETTI
tel. +358 (0) 20 757 4700
lasaretti@lasaretti.com
ORIGINAL SOKOS HOTEL ARINA
tel. +358 (0) 8 312 3255
sales.oulu@sokoshotels.fi
GREENSTAR HOTEL OULU
tel. +358 (0) 10 423 9394
sales@greenstar.fi
Organisers

