The Energy Future Project – Finnish Energy

The Energy Future Project identified possible developments in the future of energy customers and their energy use.

The major changes in the energy sector at the moment can be summarized into four themes:

  1. Renewable energies and low carbon energies
  2. Digitization and technological development
  3. Changing energy market actors
  4. The increasing importance of consumers.

The Energy Future Project discussed these themes from an energy customer’s perspective.

The project was organized in six workshops that involved energy operators and stakeholders widely. The workshops were divided into the following customer groups: households, mobility and logistics, service sector, manufacturing industry as well as farms, countryside and leisure housing. Each workshop discussed how energy change, technological development and servitization could affect the everyday life, working life, operating models and energy use of each customer group. In addition, the workshops sought answers to how energy customers themselves and their choices affect the energy system. The timespan under observation was until 2030 and Finland was the main context.

The key issues of the project were: What is the customer’s position in the energy market of the future? Is the energy sector able to develop services that are genuinely consumer-friendly and help consumers in gaining a competitive advantage? Are there going to be more incentives that support the introduction of new and innovative energy solutions?

Successful workshops were a prerequisite for a good implementation of the project. The challenge was to form a versatile team which is able to identify genuinely customer-driven benefits and new opportunities in the ongoing change in the energy market. With Capful’s competent guidance, we succeeded in this and obtained a lot of concrete suggestions for further work.

Jukka Leskelä, CEO of Finnish Energy

Starting point

  • The consumer and customer perspectives are gaining strength in the energy sector both in legislation and in operations of energy companies.
  • Finnish Energy strives to take account of the energy use of customers and to become a forerunner and a promoter of the discussion of innovative development of the energy system.
  • The aim was to involve broadly different energy customer groups and to gather their views on the potential and desirable developments of energy use.

What was done?

  • The key trends in different customer groups’ operating environment, uncertainties and assumptions about the future development of the energy sector and the use of energy were identified.
  • The impacts of future developments were assessed: What opportunities and risks the supposed developments would bring to different customer groups, if they were realized?
  • Proposals for key stakeholders were created: What measures should energy companies, policy-makers, lobbyists and clients themselves need take in order to exploit future opportunities and avoid risks?

What was achieved?

  • The customer-oriented future image of Finnish Energy created in the project forms a base for open customer-driven energy debate in Finland and a broad-minded environment for lobbying.
  • Views of different customer groups’ about the desirable development of the energy sector and the measures considered in the field were gathered from which cross-cutting themes between distinct customer groups were identified in order to support lobbying and the development of the industry.
  • The output of the project is a story-based, visual description of Finnish Energy Future. The final outcome of the project is going to be released in early 2018.

Interested in scenarios or the future of energy?

Let’s talk!


Arto Kaunonen
Founder, Senior Partner
+358 50 356 0717
arto.kaunonen(at)capful.fi
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