The Finnish Energy Agency found out in the spring that no electricity reserves will be needed this winter. The energy shortage system was not used even during last winter’s energy crisis, Helsingin Sanomat wrote on Saturday.
Officials warned Thursday of the possibility of an electricity shortage and urged Finns to reduce electricity consumption. At the same time, Finland has a reserve for electricity shortage situations, where the state buys reserve production from power companies in case electricity consumption exceeds market-based electricity production. Backup power plants are ready to produce electricity for a maintenance fee if necessary.
However, this system is not currently in use, because the Energy Agency decided in April that there is no need to purchase electricity reserves for the period from November 2023 to October 2024, HS wrote.
The Energy Agency made this decision because in the spring it found that the commissioning of the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant, in particular, reduces concerns about the sufficiency of electricity.
At the same time, the state would not have activated the reserve on Friday if it had existed.
“Even though prices are high, the situation on Friday would not have been such that the electricity reserve would have been used even if it had been there. There was no shortage of electricity,” said Antti Paananen, director of the Energy Agency, and explained that the reserve is not intended to keep electricity prices low.
According to Helsingin Sanomat, the Finnish electricity market worked according to market conditions on Friday: the high price of electricity caused the so-called elasticity of demand, i.e. electricity consumers reduced their consumption more than expected.
The reserve was not even used during last winter’s energy crisis, because then the energy agency only received one offer from energy companies. Fortum offered the Meri-Pori coal plant as an energy reserve, but the agency rejected the offer as too expensive.
The electricity reserve system was created in Finland in 2007. The reserve was used only once, in the winter of 2010.
2024-01-06 10:07:00
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