The Finnish Climate Fund has decided on a €5 million capital loan to Aurelia Turbines Oy to speed up the deployment of more efficient industrial gas turbines. For the first time, the Climate Fund’s funding includes a sustainability incentive.
Hydrogen will play an important role in the transition towards a low-carbon society. The hydrogen economy will be built on a value chain of hydrogen production, storage, transport and utilisation. Aurelia Turbines makes more efficient gas turbines for industrial needs. These gas turbines have been designed to flexibly use various degrees of hydrogen and other energy sources. As industrial infrastructure is gradually updated along different tracks, Aurelia’s turbine delivers great value at the end of the hydrogen value chain, making the industrial infrastructure ready to flexibly deploy hydrogen and other low-emission fuels.
Thanks to its flexibility, Aurelia’s solution has very good chances of being involved at an early stage in supporting the completion of the industrial infrastructure, one piece at a time, for a hydrogen future and gradually taking it in a more environmentally friendly direction. Deploying the turbines is estimated to have a cumulative emissions reduction potential of around 1.5 Mt CO2e over a ten year period.
According to Aurelia Turbines’ CEO Matti Malkamäki, Aurelia’s products enable the flexible transition from fossil fuels to low-carbon solutions: ”Customers can buy a turbine from us today and run it on natural gas or biogas, for example. With very minor modifications, the same turbine can also use hydrogen as a fuel once available. Our technology acts as a bridgebuilder between today and tomorrow. Funding from the Finnish Climate Fund means that we can build that bridge faster.”
The Climate Fund’s CEO Paula Laine is pleased with the possibility funding brings to speed up broader deployment of Aurelia Turbines’ solution as a part of the hydrogen economy transition: “For the first time the terms and conditions of our funding include a separate sustainability incentive, with which we aim to encourage Aurelia Turbines to further increase the share of hydrogen and other emissions-reducing solutions in their business.”
Aurelia Turbines’ solution:
Aurelia Turbines was founded in 2013 and makes small-size gas turbines for industrial needs. The turbines can be fuelled with varying degrees of hydrogen in addition to other energy sources, and thanks to its fuel flexibility and relatively competitive pricing, Aurelia’s solution is a good option to support the gradual transition of industry to the hydrogen economy.
The solution has considerable emissions reduction potential: the ten-year cumulative emissions reduction potential is around 1.5 Mt CO2e. The solution could in particular have a bigger role than its size at the front line of utilising hydrogen, speeding up development of the hydrogen infrastructure.
Funding from the Climate Fund will be involved in speeding up reaching emissions reductions and in contributing to supporting the development of a hydrogen cluster in Finland. The €5 million funding is aimed at funding working capital for turbines with significant emissions reduction potential.
The interest on the Climate Fund’s capital loan has been priced in accordance with the reference interest rates table published by the EU, i.e. the Climate Fund is entitled to interest on its capital loan on market-terms. In addition to this, a convertibles option has been negotiated into the funding agreement through a sustainability incentive, whereby the Climate Fund has the right to convert a part or the entirety the loan into a holding in Aurelia Turbines Oy. Under the sustainability incentive, the more emissions reductions Aurelia’s turbines deliver based on a forecast basic level at the end of the loan term, the more favourable conversion is for Aurelia Turbines.
More information:
Saara Mattero, Communications Director, the Finnish Climate Fund, tel. +358 400 114 777, saara.mattero@ilmastorahasto.fi
Matti Malkamäki, CEO, Aurelia Turbines tel. +358 50 543 5260, matti.malkamaki@aureliaturbines.com
The Finnish Climate Fund is a Finnish state-owned special-assignment company. Its operations focus on combating climate change, boosting low-carbon industry and promoting digitalisation. The Climate Fund invests in large-scale projects in which the fund’s investment is crucial to enable the project’s realisation in the first place, on a larger scale or earlier than it would with funding from elsewhere.
Aurelia Turbines Oy designs and produces the most efficient small gas turbines in the world. To date, Aurelia has designed a new 400 kWe gas turbine, the Aurelia®A400. Aurelia’s technology can be used for various applications by commercial and industrial end-users who require both electrical power and heat, as well as steam and/or cooling, for their processes. Aurelia’s systems can run on renewable and non-standard fuels. Aurelia seeks to deliver the core components of its technology to its regional partners, who assemble and sell the complete, integrated turbine system as a local product on its own markets. Aurelia was founded in 2013. It is headquartered in Lappeenranta, Finland and also has an office in the United Kingdom.