2025 was a good year for EnergySampo. The collaboration between its founding partners ABB, Danfoss, Hitachi Energy, Wärtsilä, Vaasan Sähkö, VEO and VNT Management stayed strong. Furthermore, pilots and projects run by the partners continued broad-based engagement with the industrial actors in Finland and beyond.
Broadening the scope of collaboration is well aligned with our objective to bring up relevant system level themes in ways that speeds up green transition. We extended our regional reach and new partners joined our extended ecosystem. This will for sure improve our ability to influence the discussions and bring up important themes in the future as well. Furthermore, also the collaboration between us and research actors grew closer.
Hence, we can proudly state that we are in a good position to keep driving system level innovation in 2026 as well.
System level innovation
EnergySampo exists to develop system level energy solutions that pave the way to fossil-free future. These themes are present both in the ecosystem level discussions, and in the partner company level. The sense of urgency was well articulated by ABB’s Springboard team, who concluded that if we continue working in the same way that we do today, it will take hundred years to achieve significant change. Needless to say, we need to speed up development.
System level innovation calls for system level understanding. This in turn calls for understand the changing context and develop ways to assess and define the best course for action. While development of the physical assets is slow, we believe that system level innovation can be accelerated by simulating real-life energy systems. That’s why, EnergySampo are increasingly looking at simulating energy systems of the future to define the most attractive scenarios for future development from multiple viewpoints including for example real-life operations and optimization, product and solution development, regulatory environment as well as research and education. This will be a major focus area for 2026.
BotH2nia continues to thrive
Hydrogen is an important part of the future energy systems. Consequently EnergySampo is an active partner in BotH2nia Hydrogen Valley. During 2025 BotH2nia continued to thrive: The number of involved regions grew from initial four to seven. In addition to the original regions Northern Ostrobothnia, Middle Ostrobothnia, Ostrobothnia and Satakunta, Sea Lapland, Pirkanmaa and Varsinais-Suomi joined the Hydrogen Valley.
The role of BotH2nia in the Finnish hydrogen industry is strong. As the region produces two thirds of Finland’s wind power, it will be potentially producing a lion’s share of Finland’s hydrogen: There are 18 publicly announced hydrogen value chains with targeted production of 300 kilotons of hydrogen annually by 2032.
In September BotH2nia was granted official Hydrogen Valley status by Clean Hydrogen Partnership. This was a major milestone. In 2026 we are looking forward to using the hydrogen valley platform as a source of funding for individual projects and for the collaboration structure as well. Therefore, we at EnergySampo tight collaboration with BotH2nia, and remain focused on developing hydrogen pilots as well.
Stay tuned for more
There were a number of other initiatives that are worth mentioning as well. Regional Innovation Valley initiative, regulatory sandboxes and number of pilot initiatives were on our agenda. We supported University of Vaasa and VTT to apply for funding for hydrogen market research from Academy of Finland and worked on number of other initiatives.
Our way of working is efficient. Our partners are committed. New partners are joining our ecosystem. As EnergySampo is an active member of EnergyVaasa cluster, and we are committed to the new cluster strategy and its objectives.
Looking into the 2026, it looks like we have an exciting year ahead of us. Therefore, we welcome you to stay tuned to EnergySampo communications – together we can continue innovating for the better future.