Finland will spend the entire month of September without two nuclear power plant reactors. On Monday, September 16, wholesale electricity prices in the country jumped to 500 euros per megawatt-hour in the morning. A similar price dance took place in the country in January. Some Finns used their inheritance to pay bills.
On 9 September, the second power unit of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant with a capacity of 890 MW failed. The operator TVO reported a few days later that the cause was a defective water-cooled generator rotor.
“Current estimates indicate that power generation at OL2 will resume on September 29 following further investigation of the faults and remedial work,” the company said.
The failure occurred while Fortum was carrying out 51 days of maintenance work on the first reactor of the 440 MW Loviisa nuclear power plant. As a result, the country lost 1.3 GW of generating capacity by the end of the month. The situation is further aggravated by the unstable production of electricity from wind farms.
The state-owned energy company Gasum predicted that wholesale electricity prices in Finland could rise to 1,000 euros per MWh in the afternoon on Thursday, 12 September. This did not happen, but one-hour prices rose to 400 euros per MWh. Today, 16 September, Finland recorded even higher prices. According to the Nord Pool exchange, wholesale electricity prices reached 476 euros per MWh from 9:00 to 10:00. This is because the average price for electricity from 9:00 to 21:00 is 245 euros per MW throughout the day.
These prices are in sharp contrast, for example, with the average monthly price in August, when it was 12.5 euros per MWh, and with current prices in France, which is Europe’s leading nuclear power and where the average wholesale price during the day did not exceed 40 euros per MWh on 16 September.
If Finland’s nuclear power plants fail, there will not be enough generation, even though imports are limited: the country stopped buying electricity from Russia in 2022. Since then, record price increases have become common in Finland. The last case of peak prices occurred at the beginning of the year. On January 5, at certain times, electricity was sold in the country at 890 euros per MWh.
Companies buy electricity on the exchange, but some Finnish residents have chosen tariffs where prices are linked to exchange prices. And some families are still shocked by the sudden increase in January. Laura Lehtinen told Yle that the electricity bill during the first month of winter was 500 euros. And Sauli Puukari has 850 euros. For a family of two pensioners, the amount is considerable.
“It helped a lot that we received an inheritance from my mother, who at one time was a thrifty person.” – said Sauli Puukari.
Laura Lehtinen works at Nokia, but also has to save money because of the high bills: “The children have hobbies, but I, for example, have not been to the hairdresser for almost two years.”
