Fifteen companies applied for energy subsidies from the Finnish government worth 1.3 billion euros

The Finnish government said on Thursday that 15 companies had applied for Finnish investment aid to finance some of the new large-scale demonstration energy projects worth 1.
3 billion euros, six of which were about replacing coal and other fossil fuels
.

Finland aims to reduce carbon emissions and earlier this year approved a ban on coal for power generation in May 2029, forcing some large utilities to look for alternative energy solutions
.

The government has pledged some investment assistance for large-scale energy demonstration projects that will help meet national and EU energy and climate targets
by 2030.

Finland's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment said only projects with investment costs exceeding €5 million could apply for aid, and the ministry plans to allocate a total of €40 million
.

"The total amount of funding requested for these projects is 140 million euros," the ministry said in a statement on Thursday, without releasing the list
of the 15 companies that have applied.

Six of them involved replacing coal and other fossil fuels in urban areas, four of them were biorefinery projects, and five involved new energy technologies
.

Finland's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment will announce the results of the project in
November.