There are long outages in the electricity transmission connections between Sweden and Finland in late spring and summer. It can be seen as a larger than normal fluctuation in the price of electricity.
Power the long construction and maintenance works of the main grid in central and northern Sweden can increase the fluctuations in the price of electricity in late spring and summer in Finland.
The Swedish grid company Svenska Kraftnät is currently doing major network improvement works. The company builds new power lines and commissions new substations in central Sweden.
The works have also affected the 1,200 megawatt Fenno-Skan submarine cable connections between Finland and Sweden.
According to the market messages sent by Svenska Kraftnät to the electricity exchange Nordpool, the electricity export capacity from Finland to the Central Sweden price area has been out of use since the end of April. The outage lasts until mid-May. At the same time, the import capacity from Sweden to Finland has been limited.
The transmission connection between Finland and northern Sweden is also undergoing long maintenance works, which limit the import and export capacity of electricity.
The transmission connections of 1,500 megawatts between Finland and Northern Sweden will be maintained from the end of May to Midsummer and even later in the summer from mid-July to mid-August, according to the grid company Fingrid.
Fingrid’s head of the unit responsible for strategic network planning Mikko Heikkilä says that the works on the transmission connections affect the availability of electricity from Sweden.
Heikkilä says that cross-border transmission connections bring flexibility to the electricity system. When connections are maintained, there is less flexibility and, according to Heikkilä, this can be expected to be seen as a higher-than-usual variability in the price of electricity.
“When we have little wind and need imported electricity, we cannot import electricity from Sweden, and when we have wind and a lot to export, we cannot export electricity to Sweden. In practice, this means that the price of electricity is more volatile than normal during interruptions, i.e. momentarily either really cheap or really expensive,” says Heikkilä.
Sweden kraftnät has a large investment program underway to improve the country’s electricity transmission connections. In Sweden, the problem has been insufficient transmission connections between the country’s different price areas, which has caused large price fluctuations in places within the country.
The problem has arisen from the fact that Sweden’s nuclear power plants are located in the southern part of the country and hydro and wind power plants in the northern part of the country, but electricity consumers are located in large cities in the central part of the country. During Russia’s war of aggression, the situation has also been considered a threat to energy security.
From Finland’s point of view, especially the Fenno-Skan connection has needed improvement, because the electricity export connection from Finland to Sweden has not been able to be utilized at its full capacity of 1,200 megawatts for years.
However, from the point of view of Finland’s security of energy supply, it has been good that the import connection from Sweden to Finland has worked normally.
Sweden In April, Kraftnät announced that it would start the largest investment in its history to improve electricity networks in central Sweden.
The company said it will build 1,500 kilometers of new lines and about 30 new substations, and modernize 2,500 kilometers of lines with 16 billion kroner (1.4 billion euros).
The announced investment is part of an investment program that will last for years.
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