Wind Powering Finland's Charge & Drive Network

Sailing in an EV

The electricity used in Finland's Charge & Drive network is 100% wind powered, which is verified by Fingrid's Guarantee of Origin (GO). A Guarantee of Origin (GO or GoO) is a tracking instrument defined in article 15 of the European Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC.

Our chargers are often located on properties that already have electricity contracts with various electricity suppliers. Because EV chargers often use the electricity selected by the location owner in their electricity contract, it can be problematic for EV drivers to know if the electricity they are using to charge their car is produced by renewable sources or not. To assure EV drivers that all the electricity used to power their vehicles from our network comes from renewable sources, Fortum Charge & Drive purchases wind Guarantee of Origin certificates for all the electricity used in our Finnish network. Guarantee of Origin electricity is the only way to certify that the electricity has been produced using renewable sources.

Here's how it works:

Each year we calculate the total consumption of electricity from our network. This information is easily available to us from the platform that we use to operate our EV charging networks, called CDMC (Charge Drive Management Cloud). From our platform, we can see the amount of electricity consumed per charging session, per charging station, per organization, by country, by time, etc. We take the total consumption of electricity in Finland for the previous year, and that MWh amount is registered in the GO Register.

In short, regardless of where the electricity was originally produced from, we commit to the production of the equivalent amount in wind, and in doing so, we "cancel" the emissions that may have been produced from the original electricity source. The Guarantee of Origin electricity is tracked down to the specific turbine that generates the electricity, so by selecting electricity from a specific location, GOs can even be used as a method to support local or regional electricity suppliers! Fingrid (Finextra) is the Finnish representative of the GO system (they have a great FAQ section if you are looking for more information about Guarantees of Origin).

Basically, if you charge your car with Fortum Charge & Drive in Finland, you're not driving, you're sailing. Happy sailing everyone!

Here are copies of our 2018 Guarantee of Origin certificates for the consumption of Charge & Drive Finland: