Tomas Tuominen
Senior Vice President, Power Markets
Prior to joining Renewable Power Capital, Tomas Tuominen led the European PPA team for Macquarie’s Green Investment Group where he built their capability to originate, structure and negotiate PPAs across Europe. While at GIG, Tomas negotiated corporate and utility PPAs and physical route-to-market agreements in numerous jurisdictions for both new-build and operating assets across solar and wind technologies.
Before GIG, Tomas was a PPA Director at GE Renewable Energy, as well as a Senior Sales Manager for onshore wind turbines. Prior to GE, Tomas has worked at Statkraft in the Nordic Origination team as well as Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the Strategic Equity Derivatives team. Tomas holds a MEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Management from the University of Sheffield.
What’s your role at RPC?
I am a Senior Vice President in the Power Markets team. We are responsible for all the contracts that relate to revenue within RPC. The team is involved in understanding the fundamentals of long (and short)-term power market forecasts, analysing various future market scenarios, originating & executing power purchase agreements (PPAs), selling physical power (and any certificates) into the market and monitoring and managing risk on an ongoing basis. My specific responsibility, in the Portfolio Management & Operations, part of the team is the physical sale of electricity (and compliance with all market regulations) as well as the risk monitoring and management part of the business.
What’s a typical working day for you?
The first thing I do is check the markets for European power and related commodities (gas, coal, carbon) to see if something drastic has happened overnight. I then read market news and summaries to understand if there is something happening that might be relevant for RPC’s risks and revenues. I may then speak to several counterparties about new contracts or to negotiate transactions, before spending the majority of the day trying to either A) analyse if there is something clever we can do to optimise revenues, improve investment returns and mitigate risk, or B) completing various tasks related to market compliance or electricity/certificate transfers to clients.
What have you found during your time at RPC?
RPC is full of experts that really love what they do. Nobody is an expert in everything, so we always work in teams of people that can complement each other, and that collaboration works extremely well.
We are a relatively small company, but because of our growth ambitions, we behave like a much larger company. Yes, we still act quickly and nimbly in our investments and contracts, but we also have processes and steps that need to be completed in a formal manner. From my time at RPC, it feels like a company planning to be much bigger than it is today.
What’s your proudest career moment?
I have a number of proud moments, and they all generally relate to changing track. I started my career in the equity derivatives space, but then transitioned to energy markets. After some time working on energy markets (including renewable energy), I made a jump into selling wind turbines for a major OEM. The next step was to stop selling turbines, but to create turbine-selling opportunities by using my energy market knowledge to originate and structure PPAs. That led me to moving from a wind OEM to a world-class investor to start a PPA team from scratch. And now I am at RPC, responsible for portfolio management & operations, which I have never done. The next proud moment will be first power produced from our Finnish wind farms – despite having spent 10+ years in this space, I have never been in a role that has allowed me to manage power from an asset that my company has constructed and commissioned.
What do you do in your spare time?
In addition to spending time with my family (wife, two kids under 5 and two cats), I love to run and bike in the forests around Oslo where I live. My favourite place with the kids is either on Oslo’s beaches or camping in the forests around the city. I am also participating in my first ultra-marathon in 2022, and hoping to do more of them in the future. In addition, I am an avid cook with a love for real BBQ. I also brew my own cider and beer, which I should really do more often.
Where’s your favourite place in Europe?
Oslo has to be one of the best cities anywhere. It’s a capital city, with all of the opportunities and buzz that creates, but it also has a really pleasant climate, beaches, rivers, forests, almost unlimited cross country skiing trails and downhill skiing just on the doorstep. It’s hard to make use of all the nature that Oslo has – there is almost too much to explore.
What’s your favourite clean technology and why?
It’s hard to choose between solar PV and wind, so I’m going to say “green hydrogen and its derivatives”. It’s a field I don’t yet understand well at all and there seems to be huge amounts of potential. It may also help us manage some of the intermittency of renewable technologies such as solar and wind.