Over the past twenty years, I’ve served a total of 15 years on the board of our housing company, including the last few years as chairperson. In the spring of 2024, I passed the gavel to the next chair. Contrary to what one often hears, I’ve personally found working on the housing company board to be a rewarding and meaningful task. Of course, the main motivation comes from taking care of one’s own home and investment, and ensuring their value is maintained. But for me, it’s also been important to build cooperation and community spirit within our block in the long term — and I believe we’ve succeeded in that. The Erskine block in Malminkartano forms a wonderful community of four housing companies, with a shared courtyard and clubhouse that naturally brings people — especially children — together. That said, community doesn’t build itself; it has required, and will continue to require, attention and care.
One regret I have from these years is that the energy renovation of both our building and the whole block never came to fruition. Our first attempt ran into trouble because the plot was too small to accommodate enough geothermal wells. Later on, with deeper drilling and the possibility to place some of the wells partially on city land (the document is in Finnish), the space would have sufficed. But then came the Orpo government’s decision to eliminate ARA subsidies for energy renovations, along with a major (and costly) wet-space renovation that our housing company had already completed. Although, due to the high price of district heating in Helsinki (the link is in Finnish), the energy renovation would still have been a sound investment, shareholders no longer had the resources to proceed with it.
A comforting thought in all this is that the City of Helsinki and Helen (the city’s energy company) are carrying out an energy revolution on a city-wide scale. As the city’s heat production shifts away from combustion and toward low-emission sources like wind, solar, heat pumps, and possibly small nuclear reactors, the emissions of all buildings using district heating will decrease. There’s also hope that heating costs — which have skyrocketed due to the price of emission allowances — will stabilize in the future.
The energy transition in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area is truly at a remarkable point. In Vantaa, the world’s largest thermal storage facility is under construction — designed to store summer heat for winter use. In Helsinki, plans are underway for small nuclear power plants optimized for district heating, hydrogen production, and utilizing waste heat from that process. Meanwhile, Espoo is building massive data centers that also function as heat sources.
So even though the Erskine Block energy renovation and the geothermal project in Otaniemi (the link in Finnish) didn’t come to pass, the energy transition in the region is moving forward with bold, innovative leaps!