Kemi is a town situated by the Bothnian Bay in Northern Finland. The Ajos Island hosts an industrial area, Kemi harbor as well as Finland’s largest wind park owned by PVO-Innopower Oy, a Pohjolan Voima Group company focusing on the exploitation of new energy forms. The wind farm was delivered by WinWinD during 2007 and 2008 and has since been under the servicing of WinWinD’s Operation & Maintenance department, WinCare. Eight of the turbines are built on artificial islands and two of them on-shore.

PVO has been WinWinD’s customer and partner for as long as WinWinD has existed. Two of WinWinD’s founders came from PVO and the companies have grown and learned together about the wind energy business. Lauri Luopajärvi, Managing Director of PVO-Innopower has been involved since day one. “Many things at WinWinD are as they are because PVO has asked for them. It is definitely worthwhile listening to the customer”, says Luopajärvi. During the two companies’ journey together PVO has also gathered plenty of know-how and expertise in the industry. They plan to grow in the area and they have several wind power projects in different phases. “Emission-free energy is in demand from the consumers. Wind energy is going to be important in the future, but I’d like to see even more technology development in this industry.” suggests Luopajärvi.

The Ajos Wind Park was the first big wind energy project for PVO. According to Luopajärvi, “Ajos’ production is the first wind farm that shows in our total energy production”. The project has been successful even though there were some major difficulties on the way. The project was already structurally very challenging, but the marine and icy conditions of Kemi brought along additional difficulties.  Even though PVO and WinWinD were Finland’s pioneers of wind park construction in these conditions, the project was completed ahead of schedule and in budget.

Luopajärvi emphasizes the importance of efficient operation and maintenance of productive wind parks. “There are two levels to O&M; when the wind is blowing, the turbines must be rotating and producing energy. On the other hand, if something goes wrong and a turbine is stopped, it must be fixed in a blink of an eye. This needs good preparation from the service crew and entire O&M value chain”. Luopajärvi has followed the Ajos wind park closely during the years. “WinCare has improved its operations greatly since the early days. There have been some problems, but once the retrofit program was completed, things have been going well. We were happy to notice, that last winter there were no snow mobile tracks or other signs of maintenance in the snow. This meant that the turbines had been running as they should.”

Eesti Energia, an international energy company engaged in the production, sales and transmission of electric and thermal power, cooperated with WinWinD to build Aulepa Wind Park to the west coast of Estonia. With its thirteen 3 MW turbines and annual production of more than 100 GWh, Aulepa Wind Park has the largest nominal capacity in the Baltic area.

Eesti Energia’s business strategy has a strong focus on renewable energies with wind energy as the biggest contributor. Director of Eesti Energia’s Renewable Energy Business Unit, Ando Leppiman comments that the wind turbine is becoming a symbol of tomorrow’s cleaner energy production. “Eesti Energia is changing towards a more environmentally friendly energy producer. In order to be competitive, we need to be as CO₂ neutral as possible with a diverse production portfolio.” Leppiman sees an even bigger “green boom” lurking in the future and the company plans to strongly grow their wind energy production. By 2016, they should have altogether 600 MW installed turbines.

Aulepa Wind Park was Eesti Energia’s first touch to large-scale wind energy production. They saw WinWinD as another new comer in the market with an interesting and innovative technological solution. “WinWinD was a flexible partner who truly understood what the customer was looking for” says Leppiman. “WinWinD people are easy to deal with in all levels. For Eesti Energia, the cooperative working ways of WinWinD was the perfect solution. We were able to speak openly of issues and solutions to problems were solved in genuine consensus – it felt like working with friends”. The delivery project proceeded right on schedule and without any noteworthy problems. “WinWinD acted very correctly during the project, what was promised was delivered. For us, Aulepa was not just another project in a row to be executed, but more like a flag ship of our greener approach.”

Aulepa was not an investment just to communicate a message, however. “Financial drivers are of course the most important ones; green values follow after. Aulepa is an important reference for green energy, but Eesti Energia’s primary expectation is that it generates a cash flow.” When asked what Eesti Energia has truly gotten from Aulepa, Leppiman’s answer is short: “Electricity”. Since its inauguration in June 2009, Aulepa Wind Park has been producing electricity reliably. “The availability percentage of from the past four weeks has actually been over 99%”. WinWinD’s operation and maintenance function, WinCare, has been taking care of Aulepa since the inauguration. “A good wind park is the kind you don’t have to think about, and so far no issues have been brought to my table”, tells Leppiman.

Leppiman has something of a fatherly pride over the Park. “In 2007 when we visited the site, we saw only grass land. Today there’s an environmentally friendly, productive and profitable energy plant. Even if I didn’t get my hands dirty on site, Aulepa is still a “child” of our team. When I’m 60 or 70 years old, I can show Aulepa to my grand children and tell them that this is something we created.”

« The Candor Wind Turbines », installed in Hescamps (France), never faced any resistance. This is so rare in France that it is definitely worth mentioning. How did Les Vents Picards, a wind turbine development company created by six farmers, succeed?

When the first feed-in tariffs for wind energy were published in 2001, numerous developpers, most of them German, came up to French farmers to offer leases in order to install wind turbines on their lands. “Considering the rents they proposed, I understood that this form of energy will become profitable. I asked some of my friends: ‘Why not install wind turbines ourselves?’”, explains Hubert Corpet, farmer and president of the SAS Les Vents Picards. He organised information sessions to interested people with specialists to examine the feasibility of the project. “After these meetings I asked: ‘Who wants to follow me?’”  Thus started the adventure for those who raised their hands. These six neighbours were motivated by two reasons: change the image of farmers, who are seen as soil and water polluters, and develop a sensible investment. Each of them personally invested 80 000 € in the wind farm.

During the information sessions, the developers visited a wind farm owned by InnoVent, a French wind turbine development company. “We had a good connection with Grégoire Verhaeghe, president of InnoVent”, recalls Hubert Corpet. During another session, a specialist advised them to include the neighbours of the wind turbine project as much as possible. “He insisted on the importance of increasing their awareness, on the necessity of making them participate in the project and of being very transparent.” The six farmers decided therefore to open the capital of their wind farm. Today, approximately thirty people own 20 % of the shares at 1 000 € per share. The average profitability is about 7 % in 15 years. “Everything goes well with the neighbours. Even those who decided not to invest know the financial arrangements of this 7 million € investment”, explains Hubert Corpet. The share owners will receive their first dividend in 5 or 6 years.

The six developers worked five years before seeing their wind turbines installed. This long time is explained by the heaviness of the administrative procedures needed to obtain a building permit. “We had to execute an impact study, examined by about twenty different civil services”, underlines the farmer-developer. At first, the Vents Picards team turned to an office specialised in these impact studies but found the fare of 150 000 € too high. “So we decided to prepare it ourselves. We worked as a team; we completed a project we could not have done individually. We all wanted to reach the final target!” Once the way was cleared, they came back to InnoVent and a cooperation agreement was made. InnoVent suggested installing WinWinD wind turbines.

“Grégoire Verhaeghe believed in these windturbines and we trusted him. Ours were the first WinWinD wind turbines in France!” remarks Hubert Corpet. The characteristics of the wind turbines (64 m rotor, 66 m high and 1 MW) were the most suited to the conditions of the site. Today, they have produce electricity for two years and counting. “The first year, we had some problems concerning their availability. At that time, WinWinD was not present enough in France to efficiently insure their maintenance.” The operation and maintenance engineers had to come from Finland to fix the machines which could leave them without production even for a couple of days. This problem is now solved, - “WinWinD reacted quickly” – thanks to a contract between WinWinD and Windtechnics, a maintenance company based in Pas-de-Calais, France. “Technically speaking, everything’s going very well now. Availability levels are high thanks to the reliable concept of the turbines and the fast reaction times of competent technicians.” Satisfied with their first wind park, Les Vents Picards have continued their adventure. They have obtained a building permit in Boutavent, France which they sold in order to invest in a second permit in Aubigny-La-Ronce. “We will associate the neighbours also in this new project!”

Wind power production is expanding rapidly and the industry sees completely new kinds of companies entering the business. This is excellently demonstrated through the case of TuuliWatti, a company that is co-owned by two larger entities. Through its ownership, TuuliWatti truly touches every aspect of a Finn’s life, from electricity to groceries and from traffic to services. The electricity TuuliWatti produces helps create a vast variety of services for the Finnish people. Wind is everywhere and it can also supply our everyday lives in a very comprehensive way.

TuuliWatti’s owner, St1 is an energy company whose vision is to be the leading producer and seller of CO₂-aware energy. The company researches and develops economically viable, environmentally sustainable energy solutions at the moment with two main focus areas – bioethanol fuel and wind energy. St1 is a privately owned company with a service station network in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Poland. The other owner, S Group is a Finnish co-operative retail company group. It consists of the SOK Corporation with its subsidiaries and 22 regional co-operatives. The co-op members (customer-owners) own the co-operatives, which in turn own SOK Corporation. S Group’s business areas are the hyper- and supermarket trade, service station store and liquid fuel trade, department store and speciality store trade, tourism and hospitality business, motor and automotive accessory trade and agricultural trade.
S-Group is owned by almost 1.9 million Finnish households; almost 75 percent of Finnish citizen belongs to this cooperative organization.

TuuliWatti Oy is a new kind of player in the Finnish energy market. Wind power plant projects are generally long and the permitting processes set the rules for needed resources. TuuliWatti’s operations are based on a cost effective model, in which the work of shareholders can be flexibly allocated to the projects as they proceed. The administration of the company is based on representatives from both shareholder companies.

TuuliWatti believes that the most feasible sites for wind power plants can combine the interests of nature, climate and economic benefit in a sustainable way. “It makes sense to build wind power plants decentralized across Finland. Wind energy can be integrated to the existing infrastructure, meaning harbor areas, motorway sides, industrial areas and other socially acceptable locations. By spreading the plants across the country, transfer losses can also be minimized. The 3 MW turbine WinWinD delivered for TuuliWatti to Tahkoluoto, Finland is an excellent example of this.” says Jari Suominen, Managing Director of TuuliWatti.

“The experiences from Tahkoluoto have exceeded all expectations. In November we already reached an excellent 43 per cent capacity factor, which means 930 MWh of clean wind power. The availability levels have also been between 98 and 99 % from the beginning.” Suominen says.

Cooperation with WinWinD has been working as well as it is possible for a supplier-buyer relationship to work. The project went exactly as planned and was completed well before schedule. “The turbine has been working without problems from day one. All initial worries were proven needless and we have a highly reliable product in our hands. Communicating with WinWinD has been effortless; we have received all the answers on time and WinWinD has shown flexibility and helped us reach our target. To support these messages, TuuliWatti has signed a frame agreement with WinWinD about future deliveries of wind turbine generators. “, mentions Suominen. “Perhaps this kind of cooperation wouldn’t have been possible with all suppliers. Sometimes the biggest players are also the most rigid ones”. Suominen also underlines the financial importance of wind power investments. “We’ve invested money into this turbine, and now it is producing it back to us.”

TuuliWatti has strong plans to grow in the sector of wind energy. “When Finland meets its 20/20 target, TuuliWatti wants to have a market share of 10-20 %. Besides, S Group wants to supply 20 % of its operations with wind energy – it is after all with its multiple functions among the ten biggest energy consumers in Finland."

Energy management is also a comprehensive issue noticed by Suominen. He has examined the different areas in his family’s life that produce CO₂-emissions. With small changes he was able to cut over 80% of the fossil CO₂-emissions in his personal life; they purchase electricity from CO₂-free wind power, heat their service water with solar energy and his car uses bioethanol fuel. As the icing on the cake, as wind energy is playing increasing role also in Finland Suominen can enjoy a meal cooked from groceries produced by wind energy. Wind energy truly is a part of our everyday life and we shouldn’t be afraid of integrating it into the urban environment we live in.

Uljabuouda is a small mountain in Swedish Lapland standing alone in the Arctic wind with occasional visits from reindeer herds. During wintertime the sun rises above the horizon only a couple of hours to reveal the six-meter-deep snow cover and to warm up the even – 40 °C weather. Skellefteå Kraft Ab, one of the largest energy companies in Sweden, decided to build a wind farm to these harsh and hostile conditions; Uljabuouda would be the first big wind park in Sweden to be built in the mountainous region and would produce enough energy to supply 4000 electricity-heated homes. Skellefteå Kraft was looking for a turbine supplier that would provide them with better production and better availability of the turbines, and thus WinWinD started the development work of the Ice Prevention system. The first four turbines of Phase I were delivered during September and October 2009 and the remaining six would have to wait until the next time the snow melted.

The idea of the Ice Prevention system is to prevent ice from forming on the blade surface instead of trying to start the system when the blades are already covered with ice. The system knows when to heat the blades due to an intelligent algorithm. Therefore the blade heating is optimized for saving energy.

The system has been proven to work perfectly with heat distributing evenly. The system’s performance was measured in Uljabuouda over a two-month-period in December 2009 and January 2010. The blades heated up from -7.6 °C to +20 °C in only 120 seconds. One turbine used only 1.95 % of produced energy to blade heating which has enabled non-stop operation of the turbine. Without Ice Prevention the turbines would not have been operational during the harsh winter. Therefore, Ice Prevention has paid itself back in Uljabuouda already after the first winter.