The Finnish Cleantech Market In 2010
Recently, we have seen increasing investor interest in the Finnish cleantech market, which closed a total of €40-50m worth of investments in Q3 including those in companies such as European Batteries, a large scale lithium ion battery manufacturer, Nokia spin-off There Corporation, a sub/smart metering technology provider, and Preseco, a waste-to-energy company. Investments in Finnish clean technologies represented around 50% of cleantech VC investments in the Nordics, which closed a total of €100m worth of investments (source: Cleantech Scandinavia). Examples of Nordic investments are in companies like Danish biomass fuelled engine technology provides Stirling, Swedish nanowire semiconductor LED developer Glo (a link to release), Norwegian solar cell manufacturer Innotech Solar and EV company Think Global.
But will the investments in Finnish clean technologies in 2010 exceed those for 2009? We do not know the final figures for 2009 yet. In 2008, Finnish cleantech companies posted a total of €139.5m in investments, which represented the highest proportion (37%) of total investments (€372m) in all Nordic countries.
New Legislation Boosts Aidon's Energy Meters
Aidon is specialized in energy consumption meters and has developed an Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) system for energy and service companies. Aidon's AMR system is based on open architechture and consist of an electricity energy meter with a data communication bus and the associated system module.
The key competence for Aidon's concept is their straightforward data transfer technology. Besides the modular meter, communication between the remote reading system and meter points requires no other equipment.
Aidon was established in 2004 and has grown very rapidly, reaching even EUR 20 million turnover in 2008 and operations covering Norway, Sweden and Finland. The key market drivers include the demand for energy efficiency but also the new EU regulation, which requires that utilities install smart meters for all homes and residences in EU by 2023. Smart meters helps both utilities and consumers to use energy more efficiently. For home-owners, it provides with time-based energy usage information as opposed to the monthly bill and gives then a boost to change habits and energy consumption.
