Public defence in Energy Technology, M.Sc. Johannes Hyvönen

The effective integration of renewable energy will be crucial for decarbonizing both local and national energy systems, making it a prerequisite for reaching national climate and energy policy targets worldwide. This is especially relevant in Northern Europe, where several countries ambitiously aim to reach net zero carbon emissions already before the EU carbon neutrality target of 2050, paving the way for the global transition to clean energy.

Yet, it is still somewhat unclear what technologies will be used to effectively decarbonize different sectors over the next decades, especially as increased energy market uncertainty, high electricity prices, as well as price volatility have all become common occurrences in the last years following the war in Ukraine and the EU energy crisis in 2022. In this context, this thesis employs energy system modelling to assess both the techno-economic feasibility of integrating more solar PV and energy storage systems in end-consumer applications in Finland, as well as assesses how potential risks, limitations, and challenges related to resource adequacy and power supply security may impact the transition to clean energy in Northern Europe.  

The results of the thesis indicate that both smaller and larger locally installed solar PV systems can cost-effectively increase the share of renewable energy in residential buildings and data centers in northern countries, mainly by selling surplus electricity to the grid instead of utilizing local energy storages. The results also highlight how potential limitations in critical mineral and biomass availability pose significant risks to reaching national climate and energy policy targets in Finland and Northern Europe, both due to global critical mineral supply chains being highly concentrated in a few non-EU countries, and due to national and EU regulatory pressure to substantially increase forestry carbon removals by 2030. Additionally, the thesis shows that new investments into flexible thermal power generation are necessary to cost-effectively balance and support the growing share of intermittent wind and solar PV generation in the Finnish power system by 2035. 

Doctoral Student: Johannes Hyvönen

Opponent: Jean-Nicolas Louis, Research Team Leader, VTT

Custos: Prof. Sanna Syri, Aalto University School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering 

The public defense will be organized in Lecture Hall TU1, Maarintie 8 and online on Zoom.

The thesis is publicly displayed 10 days prior to the defense in the publication archive Aaltodoc of Aalto University. 

Contact information of doctoral student: 

Doctoral theses in the School of Engineering: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/49