The participation of both companies is expected to generate significant added value, as sharing findings has been highlighted as a key priority for all those involved.

Neste Oil has already launched Neste Green diesel fuel in Finland, which contains a minimum of 10% NExBTL renewable diesel...When our current round of capital projects are completed in 2011, Neste Oil will have close to 2 million t/a of renewable diesel capacity on stream. What is important now is to find new alternatives in the gasoline area, to ensure that Finland can retain its position as a pioneer in biofuel usage and achieve the tough targets that have been set—and even exceed them.

We have an extensive R&D program in place aimed at developing new types of raw materials for biofuel use and new types of biofuels. As part of this, we have built a demonstration facility in Varkaus with Stora Enso to process and refine forest-derived biomass into traffic fuel.

—Simo Honkanen, Senior Vice President, Sustainability and HSSE, Neste Oil

The oil industry has proposed increasing the biocomponent content of traffic fuels in Finland on a phased basis to 10% by 2015. This would enable us to reach the EU target for 2020 significantly earlier than would otherwise be the case, and would allow us to target 20% in the same time frame. St1 is already pressing ahead in this direction with its launch of Refuel RE85, a high-blend bioethanol. We have been building a network of ethanol plants across Finland since 2007, and our goal is to produce around 300,000 m³/a of ethanol for traffic fuel use from waste and sidestreams by 2020.

We believe that Finland needs a range of alternative biofuel solutions as we go forward. The ability of vehicles to use high-blend biofuels represents a major challenge in this respect, which is why it will be essential to increase the number of new vehicles on the road if we want to boost demand for biofuels and make these fuels more widely available.

—Jari Suominen, Director, Renewable Energy of St1

TransEco. VTT’s TransEco program focuses on the comprehensive examination and development of solutions aimed at reducing the energy consumption and emissions of road traffic as well as operating models suitable for Finland. The program is based on four pillars: research, demonstrations, decision-making and policies, and consumer control.

The five-year TransEco research program has been designed to help reduce overall energy usage on the roads and increase the use of renewable energy in this area, and will focus both on developing new technology and commercializing the results of R&D work.

Renewable energy in this respect covers both biofuels and green energy. VTT will investigate the use of electric and hybrid vehicles in a range of operating environments and road conditions in other TransEco projects; while Metropolia University of Applied Sciences will research new types of electrical power trains for vehicles and machinery.

The majority of the funding for the Neste-St1 fuel project will come from the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, with the remainder accounted for by VTT, Neste Oil, and St1.

Finland has been a pioneer in making use of bioenergy and developing low-emission traffic fuels, and the Ministry of Employment and the Economy is now giving further support to the development of new biofuels through the recently launched TransEco program.