In addition to Helen, customers of Oomi, Fortum and Vattenfall also inquired about fixed-price electricity contracts as Friday approached.
Friday the extremely high price of electricity caused about 3,000 customers of the energy company Helen to change their exchange electricity contract to a fixed-price contract just before the price spike, reported HS already on Friday.
By doing this, the electric heaters could save tens of euros for Friday, if not more, although in the long run the savings may turn into a loss.
Exchange electricity was record expensive on Friday, January 5. The average price of the day was 1.1 euros per kilowatt hour and at its highest the price rose to 2.35 euros per kilowatt hour.
A round of calls to other major electricity sellers reveals that Helen wasn't the only company whose customers seized the moment.
Fortum, Oomi and Vattenfall confirm to HS that their exchange electricity customers also inquired about fixed-price contracts last week.
A little over a thousand of Oomi's stock exchange electricity customers switched to another contract type during Thursday. According to Oomi, it is a deviation from the normal exchange rate, but not a rush.
“The record prices of stock exchange electricity caused some of Oomi's customers to react and quickly change the type of their electricity contract,” says Oomi's CEO Tuomas Oksanen in an email comment.
“Many exchange electricity customers are basically more ready for rapid price changes, make active consumption flexibility and look at the average price in the longer term. However, last Friday's price spike was such an unusual situation that the situation has been really challenging for customers,” he states.
At least Oomi doesn't have any technical obstacles to a quick change. Customers can change the contract that is valid for the time being in the online service to another type of contract for the next day.
with Vattenfall similar movement was proved. Business Director Taija Sjöblom says that such switching was seen “somewhat”, but moderately in relation to the total number of customers.
“I would think that quite a lot of spot customers have learned to use the product, that is, to monitor hourly prices and direct their consumption to more affordable hours,” says Sjöblom.
“Of course, it must be admitted that last Friday's record high spot prices in particular certainly caused challenges even for experienced users of spot electricity.”
It is also reported from Fortum that inquiries about fixed-price contracts came in more than usual due to Friday's price spike. On the other hand, at Fortum, it takes 14 days to change the contract even for its own customers, so a similar reaction would not have been possible. Vattenfall also requires 14 days to change.
Fortum's account manager Tuomas Yrttiaho says that the longer-term trend is the opposite: exchange electricity is growing in popularity.
“This has certainly been influenced by customers' better awareness of the electricity market situation and the prices of electricity on the exchange, which have remained quite low for a long time,” he says.
Intermediate format options are also asked. There are already electricity contracts where the price is quite fixed, but the customer can also save by scheduling their consumption for cheaper hours.
“Since last fall, fixed-price contracts with a consumption effect have steadily increased in popularity. The consumption effect means that the price of electricity can be affected to some extent by scheduling consumption for hours when electricity is cheaper,” says Yrttiaho.
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