Swedish energy firm Vattenfall and Finnish state enterprise Metsähallitus have entered into a joint venture to build 1.3GW offshore wind farm in the country.

Metsähallitus manages the land and water areas of the Finnish state.

Vattenfall Wind Business Area head Helene Biström said: “Vattenfall is a leading offshore wind developer in Europe.

“We are very honoured to have been selected to develop Finland’s first large scale offshore wind farm. We are looking forward to bring our broad experience to the Korsnäs project, supporting Finland to reach their ambitious climate targets.”

Located at Korsnäs off the Finnish west coast, the offshore wind farm will have the capacity to generate 5TWh of clean energy annually.

The offshore wind facility may entail an investment of between €2bn and €3bn and is expected to come online in the early 2030s.

Clean energy produced will be sufficient to meet more than two million apartment homes or around 250,000 electricity heated individual houses in Finland.

Metsähallitus director general Juha Niemelä said: “We are very pleased to partner with Vattenfall, which presented strong experience on large-scale offshore wind projects together with sustainable business practices in addition to competitive commercial terms.

“We are confident that this project will benefit the people of Korsnäs, the economic zone around Vaasa as well as the state of Finland.”

Finland has set a target to meet net zero emissions by 2035, and Metsähallitus will play a key role in achieving this goal.  In September this year, Vattenfall decided to develop the N-7.2 offshore wind project on the German North Sea coast.