Two large projects equalizing the price of electricity have been ditched within six months due to too high investment costs.
Finland from the point of view, the pumped-source power projects would be more important than the additional construction of hydropower. This is what the energy engineering professor says Esa Vakkilainen from Lappeenranta–Lahti Technical University LUT. The pumped power plant would smooth out electricity price spikes.
Energy company Kemijoki Oy said on Fridaythat it will abandon Sierilä's long-running hydropower plant project in Rovaniemi.
According to Vakkilainen, there are some potential sites for the construction of hydropower in Finland, but it has been estimated that the environmental values are greater than the value of hydropower.
Sierilä was an exception to this in the sense that, in the court's opinion, it did not have so many natural values that hydropower could not have been built, says Vakkilainen.
“Perhaps precisely because the question was about the additional construction of an already built riverbed, so that the section that was not yet harnessed would be harnessed.”
Energy engineering professor Esa Vakkilainen
Vakkilainen according to the pumped-source power plant would help with electricity price spikes.
Electric energy can be stored with the help of a pumped power plant. Water is pumped up when electricity is cheap, and when electricity is expensive, hydropower is used to produce electricity.
“From the point of view of Finland and the point of view of the consumer, a pumped power station like this is good, because it equalizes electricity prices.”
He estimates that one pumped storage plant could have had a big impact on electricity prices on Friday.
“We had such a situation in the tenders that a few hundred megawatts of offered capacity would have lowered the price of electricity a lot.”
Wind and solar power producers would also benefit from the regulating power, because during cheap electricity, the pumped power station would buy their electricity.
According to Vakkilainen, regulating power is really important for the electricity system that is being built in Finland. Other options could be battery warehouses or motor power plants.
in Finland there are no pumped power stations. at Kemijoki Oy is running preliminary preliminary design of the pumped power plant at Kemijärvi's Ailangantunturi. The company is also investigating the possibilities of building other pumped power plants in the Kemijoki watershed.
EVP Energia again told in the fall, that it has decided to give up the pumped power plant project planned for the Pyhäsalmi mine in North Ostrobothnia. The reasons given were the wild increase in investment and financing costs.
“We've had more of these over the years, but even in them it's been the case that the pumped power projects have wanted to fall on the nature values of the upper basin, that there has been a backlog in the permitting process,” says Vakkilainen.
Similar to Pyhäsalmi, the significant increase in construction and financing costs was mentioned as one of the factors in the sinking of the Sierilä hydropower project.
“When it was said that it would be quite expensive, the additional construction would have been expensive.”
Vakkilainen can see that the construction of Sierilä would have required a state grant. This is also the case with pumped-storage power plants.
The challenge is that a commercial operator cannot predict how much money a power plant could generate in, for example, 10 years from now.
“Commercially, it's not terribly profitable to make top power, because it's a big risk and in a way you don't have to.”
Vakkilainen sees that the construction of regulating power is a political issue in the same way as the weather reliability of the electricity network. In the same way that weather reliability is required from the electricity grid, politicians could say that peak power must be built.
In the government program it is outlined that the government will promote the realization of pumped power projects, for example by including them in the permit priority procedure.
The current ones the annual output of hydropower plants can be increased by 5–10 percent when the mechanical life of the machines is nearing the end and they are renewed.
According to Vakkilainen, the efficiency of hydropower turbine wheels is slightly better today than in the 1950s and 1970s, when most of the hydropower plants were built.
“After all, we've had these going on, for example, Imatra has now had such a low-power increase in hydropower.”
Vakkilainen estimates that the machines would be renewed at a faster pace if carrots were offered for it.
“Of course, it's a good question whether it's the most important or the most glaring deficiency.”
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