Grants for promoting green transition investment projects

The grant programme to promote investment projects related to the green transition has supported municipalities and regional councils in advancing the green transition, significantly increasing clean energy production and boosting Finland’s carbon neutrality targets.

In the four application rounds of the programme, about EUR 4.4 million in special grants has been awarded to 80 projects. Grants have been awarded by virtue of the Act on Discretionary Government Grants (688/2001) with funds coming from both national sources and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) of NextGenerationEU.

Recovery and Resilience Facility and Finland’s Sustainable Growth Programme

The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is a temporary instrument, and each Member State had to draw up a national Recovery and Resilience Plan to receive funding from RRF. The themes of Finland’s plan that is part of the Sustainable Growth Programme are the green transition, digitalisation, employment and skills, healthcare and social welfare services and REPowerEU.

The programme supports the transformation of the energy system. The aim is to promote the green and digital transition by increasing the production and storage of clean energy, and to ensure the crisis resilience of the energy system. In addition, the aim is to integrate the different energy systems with each other more strongly than at present and curb the rise in electricity transmission charges (Sustainable Growth Programme for Finland, p. 29).

The grants for the green transition awarded by the Ministry of the Environment promote the measures P1C1I2 "Deployment of new energy technology" and P1C2I1 "Low-carbon hydrogen and carbon dioxide capture and use".

• The Recovery and Resilience Facility | European Commission
• REPowerEU: Finland to use new EU funding to accelerate transition to clean energy | Ministry of Finance Finland
• Sustainable Growth Programme for Finland: Recovery and Resilience Plan | Valto

Grants for zoning and permit procedures and studies related to these

Land use planning and zoning by municipalities and regional councils have an important role in enabling the green transition. Special grants were awarded to increase the resources for zoning and permit procedures in investment projects that support the green transition and, through this, the programme boosted the implementation of the projects. In particular, grants were awarded to cover the costs to municipalities and regional councils concerning land use in energy investment aid projects of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment funded from the RRF and land use in projects under the Sustainable Growth Programme for Finland.

The grants have been used to support zoning in clean transition projects, explore the regional potential of one or several green transition technologies and develop new operating practices for regional circular economy clusters.

The projects of the first and second application round end at the end of 2024 and those of the third and fourth round by the end of 2025.

• What is the green transition?
• RRF energy investment aid projects granted aid | Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland