Finland’s refusal from Russian energy carriers within the framework of sanctions has created a number of problems in the country, writes on Tuesday, April 18, “RIA News”.
As noted in the material of the agency, such a step turned out to be short-sighted for the country – although the Cabinet of Ministers of Finland has banned the use of coal in the energy sector, the resource is still in demand both from the position of enterprises and ordinary citizens. This led to the start-up of decommissioned coal plants, resulting in a 10% increase in the consumption of “dirty fuel”.
Since gasification in the country is only 3%, citizens use wood, fuel oil, and coal for heating. The Finns had to go to collect deadwood in the forest, but this approach is not applicable for enterprises.
As an alternative, wind energy is actively developing in the country, however, it will be possible to cover 28% of Finland’s needs in this way only by 2025. At the same time, the purchase of energy resources from suppliers from the United States, Australia and South Africa had a serious impact on the budget – transportation costs for such exporters turned out to be much higher, which caused fuel and electricity prices to rise sharply, the newspaper writes.
On March 2, the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported that the total losses of several large companies in Finland after leaving the Russian market exceeded €4 billion. The energy company Fortum suffered the most losses.
On January 16, Riku Huttunen, head of the energy department at the Ministry of Economic Development and Labor of Finland, said that the resumption of electricity supplies from Russia is not currently relevant for Helsinki. Prior to this, the portal Epressi reported that in December last year, electricity consumption in Finland was 10% less compared to the same period last year.
In late December, it was also reported that Finnish residents were stocking up on firewood for heating cottages, fearing power outages due to the cessation of hydrocarbon supplies from Russia.
Finland and other European countries are facing an unprecedented increase in gas and electricity prices, including due to the policy of reducing energy imports from Russia, which was taken after the start of the Russian special operation at the end of February.
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