Caruna

Caruna is Finland’s largest electricity distribution system operator and demonstrates a clear commitment to building resilience into its operational network. The company’s electricity network, stretching some 88,000km across South, Southwest and West Finland Joensuu, Koillismaa and Satakunta, will be weatherproofed against the impact of harsh storms. This ensures that the energy system remains ready to serve the needs of an increasingly digitalised and electrified economy, where future consumers are set to become prosumers and combustion engines are replaced by batteries. The company also demonstrates a firm commitment to corporate responsibility throughout its business strategy. The company's corporate responsibility is based on its stakeholder demands and expectations and aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Caruna corporate responsibility programme aims to add value to stakeholders and consists of three key areas; sustainable electricity distribution, combating the climate change and work and security.  The company aligns with its responsibility goals by focusing on its services, reducing emissions, considering the environment and promoting societal digitisation. Beyond its core business, Caruna also makes clear efforts to contribute positively to the communities it operates in, ensuring that it plays a key role in developing energy systems of the future. Finland aims to become carbon neutral by 2035 and Caruna will play a key role in ensuring that this is achieved.

Building a weatherproof electricity network - Caruna 

Our vision is a million satisfied customers. We want to grow and continuously improve the service provided to our customers. That's what fuels us with positive energy.   

Building Resilience

Characterised by its long, cold winters, Finland is exposed to extreme weather, with temperatures plummeting as low as –30-40°C in regions such as Lapland. Operating a reliable energy network is no easy feat, yet Caruna energy was recently awarded the ISO 5001:2014 quality certification, affirming the company’s high standards of development, maintenance and operation across its electricity network. In June 2020, a long term project into significant network improvements, which had been ongoing since 2014, was completed. This project, spanning the regions of Ostrobothnia and Lapland, involved installing 1600km of medium-voltage electricity cables underground across 20 municipalities in order to protect the network from weather damage. Caruna has also installed an innovative, shipping container-sized electricity accumulator connected to the municipality of Inkoo’s electricity network. The storage facility is capable of storing electricity in case of incidents caused by large-scale network faults and will be studied to better understand new methods for storing electricity. This is an important step in enabling the growth of renewable energy generation whilst also improving the security of electricity supply in the region. Efforts to continue building resilience into the electricity network have continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with suitable adjustments made to how Caruna operates in order to uphold high standards of safety. This created 1.74m working hours for the Finnish economy which positively benefitted contractors across Finland who have been able to maintain a source of income during a challenging economic period.

Supporting the Community 

As a significant employer in Finland’s rural areas, Caruna is aligned with the EU Rural Development Programme for Finland which aims to foster economic activity in local communities. The Caruna Academy provides a range of training opportunities for employees to strengthen their professional skills in areas such as presentation, project management and languages. The Caruna Academy for partners provides topical trainings to the external empoyees. In 2020 Caruna launched two pioneering training programs to its partners: Caruna Academy 'Spearheads' and Caruna Project Academy. In 2019, Caruna employees supported in the Equal Opportunity campaign, a charity which ensures that every child and young person who needs help can receive suitable sports equipment regardless of their family’s financial position. The goal is to promote children’s opportunities to play sports, enabling exercise for all. Supporting Finland’s COVID-19 recovery, Caruna provided EUR 120,000 to support municipalities in hiring young people aged 16-20 for at least three months between 1 May – 30 September. 30 municipalities across Finland participated in the ‘Duunienergiaa’ (Energy at Work) campaign which supports young people to find employment over the summer period

More than 70 young people got a summer job through this campaign.

Combating the Climate Change 

Finland has a challenging goal to be carbon neutral by 2035. Achieving the goal requires both replacing the fossil energy sources by clean, renewable electricity and more efficient use of energy. Caruna as a leading distribution system owner in Finland has a key role in the energy system transformation. Caruna has made forward-looking investments on its network in order to ensure the security of supply despite of the extreme weather events caused by the climate change and increasing renewable electricity production which is more sensitive to disruptions. To boost the energy transformation, Caruna has provided a wide range of low-carbon and energy-efficient services to its customers and energy communities. Caruna is actively developing partnerships and new business models though various research programs and pilot projects. In 2020, Caruna joined the Climate Leadership Coalition, a network of pioneering European organizations working to combat climate change.