Finland has signed up to an EU commitment to raise the use of renewable energy to 38 percent of its overall energy production by the year 2020. Nowadays, the share is around 30 percent. In practice, Finland must increase renewable energy 38 terawatt hours.

To response to this challenge, Finnish government agreed on Tuesday to massively fund the growth of renewable energy - mainly wood-based energy, wind power, biofuels and heat pumps.

The renewable energy package would include feed-in-tariff for wind, biogas, and small-scale combined heat and power production, for instance.

In all, the support for renewable energy will be more than EUR300 million per year by 2020. This would trigger near EUR10 billion investments in green energy and create 10,000-20,000 jobs.

In addition, it would improve energy security and boost exports of environmentally friendly technologies.

The increase in the use of renewable energy will be equivalent in energy output to that of three large nuclear reactors.

The renewables' package comes ahead of a decision by the government, expected this week, on new nuclear power. Three applicants are seeking permission to build reactors, but the government has said it sees no need for three.

Source: The Ministry of Employment and the Economy