By Murat Temizer
Ankara
Finnish companies experienced in wind power technology are seeking energy market opportunities in Turkey, according to Finland's ambassador to Turkey on Wednesday.
Finnish companies have a high level of technological expertise and experience, Ambassador Nina Vaskunlahti said.
At the end of 2012, Finland had 257 megawatt of wind power and had 151 wind turbines. In 2013, this quantity rose to 447 megawatts of capacity and the number of wind turbines increased to 209, according to VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.
Vaskunlahti said that Finland’s relations with Turkey are good and if Finnish companies can offer anything in the field of renewable energy market and cleantech, Turkey would be a good market.
"Renewable energy is really important for Finland. We have a target of 38 percent that all our energy will be produced by renewable sources by 2020," she said.
Vaskunlahti underlined that Finnish energy resources are diversified and Finland doesn’t depend only on one source. The energy production of Finland consists of coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear power and renewable energy sources.
-Discussions over Russian nuclear
The Finnish ambassador also spoke about the sanctions imposed by the EU on Russia and Russia's counter measures along with Finland’s relations with the Baltic States.
The Finnish government decided to grant permission to build a new nuclear reactor with Russian energy company Rusatom last month, which caused a political dilemma in the country. Following the decision, the Green Party left the government coalition.
"With the economic sanctions on Russia, the EU does not stipulate that member states should not cooperate with Russia. Therefore we think we should continue our cooperation that we already had with Russia," she said making reference to Finland's plans to build a nuclear power plant with Russian energy company Rusatom.
She added that if Russia cuts the gas supply to Europe, it would not affect Finland.
She pointed out that all of Finland’s natural gas comes from Russia but its share is only 9 percent in Finland’s total energy consumption.
-Relations with Baltic countries
Vaskunlahti said that Finland has good relations with the Baltic countries, and has plans for greater energy cooperation as the Baltic countries are important energy players for the country.
"Helsinki to Tallinn it is only 82 kilometers and discussions are ongoing for plans to build a LNG terminal either in Estonia or Finland. All concerned will benefit from the planned LNG terminal," she added.
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