Rural renewable energy and biofuel investment grant
Grants help small rural businesses build or upgrade plants that produce renewable energy or biofuels for sale.
Denne finansieringsmuligheten er foreløpig beskrevet på engelsk.
You can fund a new plant, expand an existing plant or improve its technology and environmental performance. Solar and wind power production are excluded. The plant must meet EU renewable-energy sustainability criteria, and total capacity must stay at or below 2 MW, including after an expansion.
For biomass and biofuels, the sustainability criteria concern where the raw materials come from and whether production achieves sufficient greenhouse gas savings. They protect land with high biodiversity and prevent conversion of land holding large amounts of carbon for fuel production. EU voluntary schemes and national certification schemes can verify compliance; an external auditor checks the production chain from raw-material origin to the fuel producer or trader.
Eligible investment costs must total EUR 10,000–2 million. The grant covers up to 50% of approved costs for a new biogas plant and up to 30% for another new renewable heat, electricity or transport-fuel plant. Limited extensions and improvements receive up to 20%. A comprehensive renewal of an existing plant can instead receive 50% for biogas or 30% for another eligible plant: it must renew substantial parts, extend the plant’s life and involve several measures and significant costs overall. The regional vitality centre assesses which category applies.
You pay the approved costs first and then claim the grant against actual expenditure, with accounting records and supporting documents. This is a cost-based reimbursement, rather than a fixed lump sum.
Eligibility
- Your business must be small and located in an eligible rural area in Finland. Inner urban areas and most outer urban areas are excluded. A small enterprise has fewer than 50 employees and annual turnover or a balance sheet total no higher than EUR 10 million; data from related group companies may need to be included.
- You must produce and sell renewable heat, electricity or biofuels such as biogas, bioethanol or biodiesel. Most production must be sold for use outside primary agriculture or forestry; this offer is not for energy mainly consumed by your own business. A farm business can qualify, and energy used in its separate non-agricultural business can count as outside sales. Energy-sales income must be identifiable separately from agricultural business income. Projects eligible for agricultural investment support are excluded from this enterprise route.
- EU rules normally prohibit new or renewed financial support for plants that use forest biomass to produce electricity without producing heat. For Finnish projects, exceptions can apply where the electricity is produced in a region identified in a territorial just transition plan because of its reliance on solid fossil fuels, or where the plant captures and stores carbon dioxide from biomass. In either route, fossil fuels must not be the main fuel and there must be no cost-effective option for high-efficiency combined heat and power production. The transition-region route must also meet EU biomass-electricity efficiency requirements; a rated total heat input from fuel below 50 MW is one qualifying alternative.
- EU rules prohibit direct financial support for using saw logs, veneer logs, industrial-grade roundwood, stumps or roots to produce energy.
- Your business must be profitable, able to pay its bills and financially sound. The applicant and the people responsible for the business must also have sound finances. Its products need sufficient demand and markets, its staff need the necessary skills, and funding must not distort competition. The investment must materially support establishing, growing or developing the business.
- Improving an existing plant requires a significant increase in its technology level or environmentally better techniques. Replacing a plant also requires significant technological or environmental improvement.
- Artificially creating eligibility, significant statutory breaches or payment defaults, or evident disregard of support conditions can prevent an award. The conduct and default checks cover the application year and the preceding three calendar years, including recipients, controlling persons and connected registered businesses or entities. An unpaid EU aid-recovery order also excludes the applicant.
- A business classified as an undertaking in difficulty is normally excluded; the offer makes an exception when aid is awarded as de minimis support. The EU financial-distress test includes loss of more than half of share capital or own funds through accumulated losses, insolvency or restructuring proceedings, and unrepaid rescue aid or an ongoing restructuring plan. For partnerships whose owners have unlimited liability, meeting the national legal conditions for creditors to request bankruptcy or business restructuring also counts. For businesses younger than three years, the EU definition applies only the test of being placed in insolvency proceedings.
How to apply
- Status
- Løpende søknader
- Vilkår for søknadsrunden
- Continuous intake confirmed at the Northern Finland vitality centre. Applications are selected after assessment periods, subject to an award decision.
Contact your regional vitality centre (elinvoimakeskus) about the investment and its support category, then apply through Hyrrä. Check your authorization to use the service, complete the application, sign it and send it for processing. Supply any required investment permit at the application stage. Do not buy equipment or enter binding project contracts before submitting. Once the application has been submitted, work can begin at your own risk; funding is secure only after a positive decision.
The Northern Finland vitality centre accepts applications continuously and explicitly lists renewable-energy and biofuel production investments as open. Applications are assessed after each selection period, rather than funded automatically on submission.
Costs are eligible only after submitting the application and receiving notification that it is pending, and within the project’s implementation period.
Complete the project by 30 April 2029 and follow the deadlines in your award. Keep project costs separate in your accounts. Report significant changes to the project or business immediately to the vitality centre, and declare additional funding in payment claims. Submit the final payment claim within four months of the project’s implementation period ending, together with monitoring data; permitted construction also requires the municipal final-inspection record. Keep the supported investment in your use and do not sell it for at least three years after the last grant payment; the centre can set a longer period of up to ten years.