The idea: Self-sufficient cottage
In 1998, Juha Sipilä, the prime minister of Finland and the founder of Volter Ltd, was looking for an electricity supplier for his cottage in Northern Finland. The offer was more than the cost of the cottage, which made him consider his own electricity production. The project turned into a self-sufficient island, where windmill and diesel aggregate were producing the needed electricity. An idea of replacing diesel with wood chips was born soon.