Vaasa International

Vaasa EnergyWeek 2023 was a huge success. The number of business meetings held during the week more than doubled, as did the number of foreign visitors.

Vaasa EnergyWeek experienced a visitor growth of 15 percent compared to last year, which already broke records. This year, over 7100 visitors from 44 countries attended the seminars and exhibitions.

“We started to notice the increased interest the week before, when on Monday we already had over 30 percent more registered participants compared to the same time last year,” says Kristoffer Jansson, Communications & Brand Manager for EnergyVaasa.

Well-attended despite transport strike

Unfortunately, a strike affecting Finland’s rail transport coincided with the start of this year’s EnergyWeek. The Finnish Railway Union (RAU) strike led to some last minute changes, but the effect on the event as a whole was less than expected.

“Fortunately, the EnergyWeek programme was so good that visitors found other ways to get to Vaasa,” Kristoffer Jansson says.

Birthplace of the Oscar of Energy Technology

For many companies, EnergyWeek is one of the highlights of the year. Old business relationships are strengthened, new contacts are made and deals are struck.

Two companies, who will especially remember this year’s event, are Green Industry Park from Turku and CloEE, which is based in Helsinki.

During EnergyWeek, Green Industry Park won the prestigious “Oscar of Energy Technology” – the Energy and Innovation Award of 2023. Green Industry Park has developed a technology to harvest common reed and make biogas out of it. This does not only create carbon sinks but also improves the ecological status of vulnerable archipelagos.

CloEE received the People’s Choice 2023 award for their solution. CloEE provides a leading IoT software-as-a-service solution that helps industrial enterprises increase overall equipment effectiveness as well as measure and control carbon emissions due to reducing energy consumption and minimising the number of required machine tools.