Blog post: BotH2nia: Gear up that great idea of building a hydrogen bay of the North!

Recently we heard that Neste, one of the central hydrogen actors in Finland, decided to invest in Rotterdam instead of Finland, largely because of the existing hydrogen infrastructure there. For the emerging ecosystem of Green Electrification, it is a clear sign to start making changes that matter for the next investment decisions to come.

In Finland, several projects are going on that have spotted the Gulf of Bothnia as a potential “hydrogen valley”. To be able to distinguish that area in the game even in international comparison, the national H2 cluster in Finland asked the Green Electrification ecosystem for support in gearing up those initiatives.

Growing the ecosystem’s competence in building sector integrating value chains for the future is one of the five focus areas in the Green Electrification ecosystem. That again is much easier on a demonstration platform – when there is a real place with real actors to co-create those value chains with. This is why the Green Electrification ecosystem got excited about the idea of bringing together all actors that are needed for the realisation of this idea, under a new umbrella brand.

BotH2nia – a Bay joining Finland and Sweden with Hydrogen in the Middle

The new umbrella brand and collaboration platform for the hydrogen-related initiatives around the Gulf of Bothnia is called BotH2nia. It will be used for facilitating communication between projects. It will also serve as a reference for projects in international negotiations and marketing.

Nordic collaboration in production, logistics, use, and export of hydrogen-related products can be big – much bigger than the existing and planned separate projects. The cooperation only needs to be done in a significant way. The brand that arises of the cooperation needs to match alternatives that some Central European countries are studying as we speak. That’s why we invite not only Sweden but even the other European countries around the Baltic Sea to build the BotH2nia brand with Finnish actors. Together we can develop further the idea of making the Gulf of Bothnia a Nordic hydrogen bay, to serve the whole continent in the long run.

Kick-off on April the 23rd

More about this Nordic hydrogen initiative is going to be presented in Finnish on Friday, April 23rd. We’ve called to a myriad of actors interested in the idea. They will be giving short speeches from different angles relating to hydrogen in a webinar that is open for all. The speeches cover topics from city planning to technical insights to legal challenges to business interests.

The webinar is opened by the Minister of Economic Affairs, Mr. Mika Lintilä. Other keynotes are given by Mr. Antonio Lopez-Nicolas from EU Commission, Ms. Helmi-Nelli Körkkö from Business Finland Germany, and Mr. Mika Anttonen from St1.

Equivalent English presentations and webinars related to the initiative, with a stronger international presence among the speakers, will be given during spring and summer. For more information on those and other actions to come, contact minna.nasman@clicinnovation.fi.

Register here.