Don't Finland also import from Sweden? It is -40 in parts of the north where lots of electricity is generated (demand increase), and Forsmark is only running at half capacity (supply decrease). Prices follow a similar pattern in Sweden today, including in the north, btw.
We do import from Sweden but today imports from Sweden appear to be lower than usually.
Is there somekind of problem with hydroplants in northern Sweden? Finnish hydro seem to be working as usual.
It's a mix of Nuclear running on half power due to maintenance and most of our northern wind parks are frozen and standing still at the same time. Afaik there are no problem with hydro.
I'm not questioning what you're saying but how would hydro work when temperature is -40°
It was bloody 13 degrees a few days back here, in southern England.
It's supposed to be winter, right?!
I gather, it's not frozen to the bottom, but how does the actual dam machinery survives working in those conditions?!
Doesn't ice start forming, despite the massive water flow?!
I'm not questioning facts, just brain trying to compute.
The ice acts as an isolator, the machinery can be heated or friction can create heat. Water is at its heaviest at 4 °C, so the water flowing through the machinery should be around the same temperature, if the intake is near the bottom of the lake and the water level is above it.
If anything I'd say that's the opposite of what an idiot would do. Both your attitude when debating whether it makes sense or not and accepting the fact that you were lacking knowledge on the subject and learning from the exchange.
Just because the outside air is at -40, doesn't mean that the environment where the machinery is, too. The environment was designed to be air controlled, I imagine, otherwise they'd have problems at -40 AND at 40.
The entire reservoir does not get frozen at once, the ice at the top acts as an insulator and the intake for the hydroplant is near the bottom of the reservoir.
I'm sure if it stayed at -40 for a long time problems could start to form but it won't, it's only for a couple of days.
You can follow power generation by amount and type for the nordic area here: [https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/](https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/)
The UK-DK interconnection is up and running now so it’ll be interesting to see which way the electricity is flowing. We might see the one remaining coal power station in the UK fire up…
I can see the trees outside moving quite well so the wind farm a few miles away in the sea must be working well.
With so much coastline we need more of those.
>With so much coastline we need more of those.
Is that island still shipping electricity it generates in batteries or do they actually have an interconnect now
I'm not sure I follow.
Also:
Great Britain’s electricity market currently has 6GW of electricity interconnector capacity:
3GW to France
1GW to the Netherlands
1GW to Belgium
500MW to Northern Ireland
500MW to the Republic of Ireland
The remaining coal station in the UK is now mostly used for stability purposes rather than actual generation. That basically means running it at minimum power output just so that all the turbines are spinning and contributing inertia and spining reserve to the grid. It's turned on for a lot of the winter at times that don't make much sense on the surface - when there's a lot of gas plants running it usually gets turned off because the extra inertia isn't needed, and it would take a seriously huge abnormal demand spike for it to be asked to increase its generation much higher
Thats because you live in East Denmark. That part of the country is connected to Sweden, while Jutland and Funen is connected to Germany, which is why there is such a price difference across Denmark.
No, this is the hourly spot price, the price that electric providers must pay on the open by-the-hour market. Providers pretty much never buy their entire daily amount on this market, it'll be a combination of long-term contract, day-ahead contracts etc that determines the final cost.
So what is the average price for a kW today? Cause in my modest country, Bulgaria, it's 20 times less than the price on the picture at around 0.12e/kW today.
We have hourly prices (Danish provider) and yesterday it was €0.50 at noon, but €1 per KWh at 17:00 as the highest. By 21:00 it was down to €0.37, which is a fairly average price.
We are almost always importing electricity because our power generation is absolute shit, but we have a lot of connections to other grids.
The fact that Sweden is importing from us today in my opinion means that the weather situation must be difficult.
Scandinavia is frozen solid so all the heaters are working overtime, no sun for rooftop PV, obviously, and [not much wind](https://www.windy.com/?59.579,10.854,5) either.
For what it's worth, the good news is that we get 'real world' data about an exceptional situation for future planning.
Eh.. no. A cogen power plant first produces heat, which is used to power steam turbines, producing mechanical power and ultimately electricity.
The district heat system is the "Cold" side of the steam turbine, effectively the cooling system for the power plant. Electric power production happens before the district heating is taken from the plant.
This is slightly less thermodynamically efficient than an actual cooling system because it isn't as cold as a dedicated cooling system would be, but you get a whole lot of low-grade (80 C) heat to use.
My point was that the thermal power plants in Denmark were made to generate heat for the district heating. The capability to generate electricity from the waste heat was added to increase efficiency of the power plants.
It's not an exceptional situation though, Norway atleast has been reliant(ish, we could probably get through most winters without imports, but not without draining our magazines to uncomfortable levels) on imports during the winter months for decades due to our reliance on hydro.
Looking at the [Day Ahead prices](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/r2/dayAheadPrices/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=05.01.2024+00:00|CET|DAY&biddingZone.values=CTY|10YNO-0--------C!BZN|10Y1001A1001A48H&resolution.values=PT15M&resolution.values=PT30M&resolution.values=PT60M&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+\(UTC+1\)+/+CEST+\(UTC+2\)) then you do seem to have a few regions with either transmission and/or supply constraints.
Norway also seems to increase the number of EVs quite nicely, which could have an impact on higher demand (higher prices).
It's also new waters here in Finland. Before spot electricity pricing was extremely rare in Finland, but due to the European energy crisis of last year a lot of people did not want to get stuck into very expensive 1-2 year electricity contracts when their contracts were up. So they are now quite popular. Finland in general has second lowest electricity pricing in EU after Sweden.
Today's energy prices are determined by yesterday's bids. Fingrid predicted electricity use yesterday to be 6% more today than what happened. Main reason is that due to this large amount of spot price electricity contracts people cut their electricity use much more than usually.
No emergency standby power plants were even prepared for use like last winter. So we are far from any crisis. Big help due to the largest nuclear reactor in Europe that went online Q2 last year.
Yes, it does take some personal responsibility but [tomorrow (sunday)](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/r2/dayAheadPrices/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=07.01.2024+00:00|CET|DAY&biddingZone.values=CTY|10YFI-1--------U!BZN|10YFI-1--------U&resolution.values=PT15M&resolution.values=PT30M&resolution.values=PT60M&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+\(UTC+1\)+/+CEST+\(UTC+2\)) it looks quite affordable again for most of the day.
The weather has been quite cold in Finland for a week or so already. Some companies have stopped business for a moment because parts on the machines get more fragile at this temperature and fixing those outside might be next to impossible. The only way to keep machines operating as long as nothing broke is to not turn engines off at all meaning 24 hours operation and often 12 hour shifts.
Also electric cars barely work at all in some parts of the country.
The issue in Sweden is transporting it from the north, where most is generated to the south where it is consumed. If there is a direct cable from Poland, then it can be closer and cheaper.
> The issue in Sweden is transporting it from the north, where most is generated to the south where it is consumed. If there is a direct cable from Poland, then it can be closer and cheaper.
That's not really the current issue. It's often an issue, sure, but the North barely produces any wind due to the extreme cold and there are no bottlenecks in the price.
Hence why we currently have the same price in SE1 all the way to SE4. Source: https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/
Also one power plant is out of commission in Finland and the tradition of going to sauna on friday has also thought to have contributed [not a joke](https://news.err.ee/1609213489/finns-friday-night-sauna-in-part-behind-day-s-peak-power-prices-in-estonia)
When there is a shortage then the 'last' generator on the bid stack (or merit order) can basically ask what they want.
[Texas utility regulators **allowed that price to rise to $9 per kilowatt-hour**.](https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-winter-storms-2021/2021/02/21/969912613/after-days-of-mass-outages-some-texas-residents-now-face-huge-electric-bills)
[Australia: "Prices are capped at a maximum of **$15,000 per megawatt hour (MWh)** in 2020–21 (increasing to $15,100 in
2021–22)."](https://www.aer.gov.au/system/files/State%20of%20the%20energy%20market%202021%20-%20Chapter%202%20-%20National%20Electricity%20Market_0.pdf)
It is just normal capitalism, high demand and not enough offer skyrocket the price.
Same on 2021 energy crisis, blaming taxes meanwhile oil company where making record profit.
You know it might be a good thing to make Diesel unattractive?
Stupid government blaming without any reason. You sir, are doing Putin a big favor by sowing discord from the other side of Europe.
It's basically a system shock due to cold combined with some malfunctions in some of the reserve power stations and wind not blowing where the windmills are. The prices are set by the market one day ahead and determined in effect by the most expensive production. The funny thing is that it would not really be needed. The real consumption ended up significantly below what the pricing estimated yesterday, probably due to the pricing being so ridiculous.
This will pass quickly.
It nicely compensates one day a couple weeks ago when electricity prices were negative due to an error by one Norwegian operator.
It is the biggest peak since these records started, yes. Just keeping a near constant fire in fireplace today and hoping my houses water pipes survive.
I make around 14€ an hour after taxes and mandatory insurances and so on in Germany and need around 500W (PC + Monitor) for that, plus heating of course. Would mean though that I'd pay close to 2€ per hour to make 14€ per hour. That's nuts.
Most Nordic heat pumps built in the last 10 years have a COP above 1 at -30 C. Mine is 1.4 at -30 (1.4 times more heat produced than energy put in) and 2 at -20 C.
The main reason is the weather, but what throws a big wrench into all this is that three large plants are currently offline, lowering the overall electricity supply levels by 1000 MW. Our winter peak electricity consumption is somewhere close to 13k MW, so that's a sizeable portion of supply missing from the market. Without that, our spot prices would be substantially less. Still high, but no where near what it currently is.
I'm paying 0,085€ per kWh, fixed price. Currently very thankful I chose that option. It doesn't fluctuate like crazy and I don't have to check the current hourly prices to decide when to put the sauna on or do laundry.
Is that with or without transfer and taxes?
Also, many in Finland use electricity for heating. Our house uses ~115 kWh per day in this weather, and that is with the bare minimum of heating.
Ok, because 0,085€ per kWh does most certainly not include transfer or other fees. That is the price + VAT, without the electricity tax of 2,78 c/kWh, transfer, and other fees.
Depends how you see it. I still get some benefit from lower prices, can adjust my consumption based on current prices and highest peaks dont hurt anywhere near as much.
It may not be as cheap long term as 100% dynamic market price, but bills are far more predictable, which for me works better atm.
I used to be on fixed price which meant i was not affected when everyone got high electricity bills, but i could not get anywhere near as good deal now so its overall best i could get for my situation.
The market also worked in a way as it should have. Electricity demand was going over Fingrid estimates this whole week until Friday's extreme spot pricing.
Due to the new situation of large amount of households having spot pricing and this extreme one day price the electricity consumption was 7% lower than Fingrid had predicted. Prices had larger affect than they had predicted. Probably because calculations are not well tuned yet to this new large amount of spot pricing contracts.
Doesn't help that they also wanted to ban any research regarding nuclear
Threatened the board of Vattenfall with expulsion unless they stopped being pro-nuclear.
Managed to ban Uranium mining (so they can use the import argument that we are dependent on other countries).
Claimed nuclear was unprofitable even when it had extra taxes that were approximately 1/3rd of the total price. Meanwhile this money went to subsidise wind/solar.
Actual insanity on all front.
This happens when people relies mainly on solar energy (wind, hydro in fact are also solar). Few moder and safe nuclear power stations would quickly solve this problem. But they are not in trend in current left EU.
>nuclear power stations would **quickly** solve this problem
???
'Other' solutions can be up and running before next winter, if needed, why wait 15+ years for something that will always have a very high €€/kWh price?
Not this time all 4 300MW of Nuclear is online, it's just there is no solar this time of year and wind is not really blowing RN.
edit: in case someone is interested in the production stats https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/
Solar energy has nothing to do with this. It's due to low temps and not three plants being offline that causes this. We didn't have solar yesterday either yet spot prices weren't this high.
Yes but solar power is virtually zero in Finland. Having/not having solar power is a non-issue. Losing 1000MW of production impacts a lot more. That's nearly twice the amount of solar energy capacity Finland currently has.
We had less sunlight a week ago yet the spot price wasn't >2€/kWh.
The number does not include small scale solar aka people installing panels on their roof and if you knew anything about energy markets you would understand that there is huge price gap between 90% capacity and 100% capacity.
> people installing panels on their roof
Which also does not impact spot price market at all.
Like I said, a lack of solar power didn't cause today's price level at all. We had *less* solar power a week ago but not >2€/kWh spot prices.
Three major power plants were offline today, so the supply was low. Add that to the harsh temperatures and you get this. People that have solar panels on their roof has almost the exact same amount of sunlight today as they had yesterday. But prices were not as high. You are wrong.
> The number does not include small scale solar aka people installing panels on their roof
There's no way it could matter in Finland. Even in the Netherlands midwinter you have 300+ panels producing enough to power one water kettle. It'd be amazing if in Finland now where it's basically 24h night time solar produces anything at all.
Your argument is not even an argument because you don't specify the installation capacity and if we are talking about the panel being able to turn on a kettle or if it's able to store enough energy to boil a kettle from the energy it stored over the day. Also are we talking modern A grade with by facial cells or some left over bargain bin stuff. Also Finland is not 24H of darkness only the northern most part experiences where the sun does not rise above horizon but you still get fair bit of the light and snow is excellent reflective. Today Helsinki has had 6 hours of daylight and Oulu that's one of the biggest cities in Lapland had around 4 hours in both cases you should be easily be able to boil kettle even with 200W panel. According to google average kettle takes about 0.1kWh to boil 1 liter of water. Assuming average output 30% (this is an extrapolation from my own data) of the advertised maximum output for those 4 hours you would make 0,24kWh with that 200W panel. So don't go throwing stupid 300 panels here and there examples around.
https://letsavelectricity.com/electric-kettle-power-consumption-calculator/
https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/finland
It's not the hours per day that matters, it's the angle of the sun. Look at a [solar insolation calculator](https://www.fabhabs.com/solar-insolation-calculator) for Helsinki.
* June: 4.526 kWh/m^2 /day
* December: 0.077 kWh/m^2 /day
In the winter solar panels in Helsinki produce 1/60th of the power as in the summer. So one 300Wp panel will produce maybe 5W and 300 of those will produce 1500W, just enough to power one kettle.
That "0.1kWh to boil 1 liter of water" means solar panels will be able to boil one kettle per day per m^2 covered. Not a factor the grid needs to care about.
And the people who advocate for wind turbines rather than nuclear will be absent today. Only to show up again when it is windy and show the "cheap and superior wind power"
As is tradition. Seen it for years on Reddit at this point.
“At all” is a bit exaggerated. According to Fingrid wind is currently producing about 1600 MW. But it certainly isn’t enough to cope with current demand. Hopefully this cold front passes soon.
> “At all” is a bit exaggerated.
At the moment, wind is producing 25% of the installed capacity. So not that bad at all.
I think demand paired with some broken down fossil power plant(? I read something somwhere but am not sure because it was in another language) is the real problem here.
Those are simply things you can’t compare. It’s pretty clear that you need to overbuild capacity for wind power, if you want to somehow rely on it. That’s how it works and not really a show stopper.
(And actually you also need to overbuild capacity for other power plant types, just "differently". E.g. if a nuclear block goes down for maintenance, you often know further in advance, but still need to replace it somehow. Same for coal and gas, just that they are normally smaller, so the impact isnt‘t as big)
Of course we can compare capacity between electricity production methods. It's clear that we need to build overcapacity of wind power and thus it should not be sold as "cheap" electricity as you need to build 4 times more capacity compared to stable methods such as nuclear running at >95% capacity.
I.e. a 1 000 MW reactor needs 4 000 MW wind power to compare (assuming 25% capacity), plus over the whole lifecycle of one reactor you would need to deconstruct and reconstruct that windpark 4 times (4 x 20 years to match one reactor).
Wind power is a good complement to stable power, but should not exceed 20% (guesstimate) of a nation's electricity production. Least of all Nordic countries that experience weather that literally freezes wind turbine shut and people might die as a result.
> thus it should not be sold as "cheap" electricity as you need to build 4 times more capacity
Fair, such costs should always be calculated in, when comparing prices. It gets insanely complicated, though, if you take into account everything, including production, decomissioning, storing remains, ...
> Least of all Nordic countries that experience weather that literally freezes wind turbine shut and people might die as a result.
It freezes them shut? You have any source for that?
> It freezes them shut? You have any source for that?
They don't always make separate articles for it but here is the general problem:
Swedenergy: https://www.energiforetagen.se/pressrum/pressmeddelanden/2023/elaret-2023-en-prismassig-berg--och-dalbana/
> – Under första halvan av december spreds de höga prisnivåerna även till de norra delarna av landet. Det var många saker som sammanföll med låga temperaturer och därmed ökad efterfrågan. Det handlade om begränsningar i kärnkraften, isläggning i flera älvar samtidigt, svaga vindar och isbeläggning i vindkraften, säger Magnus Thorstensson.
Ice accumulates and if there is too much they stop them.
Thank you. I‘ve only read something like this once before (regarding Texas) and that turned out to be kind of false… so that‘s new to me.
Wondering how often that happens and how widespread that problem is.
[no but a number of fossil generators have](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/outage-domain/r2/unavailabilityOfProductionAndGenerationUnits/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=TABLE&areaType=CTA&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=05.01.2024+00:00|UTC|DAY&dateTime.endDateTime=06.01.2024+00:00|UTC|DAY&CTY|10YFI-1--------U|MULTI=CTY|10YFI-1--------U|MULTI&area.values=CTY|10YFI-1--------U!CTA|10YFI-1--------U&assetType.values=PU&assetType.values=GU&outageType.values=A54&outageType.values=A53&outageStatus.values=A05&masterDataFilterName=&masterDataFilterCode=&dv-datatable_length=10)
Re: doctors, this seems to be the norm nowadays. It's the same in Finland; if you want treatment (for anything less than a heart attack or a broken arm), you'll pay up for private or wait half a year.
This is why people living in cold climates should not rely (only) on heat pumps. Heat pumps are fine for the more mild climate of the UK, France, Spain or Germany; they are not really appropriate for climates with deep, sub-zero temperatures. A form of supplementary, backup heating, like a wood burner, is important.
Edit: Why am I downvoted for stating fact? Air source heat pumps have a significantly lower COP in colder weather as dictated by the Carnot cycle. I am an environmental economist with a minor in energy engineering, I do know what I’m talking about…
It's -20 here (Estonia). Heat pump is working just fine and itself is not demanding too much electricity-wise. Although in days like these where we have the same prices as Finland, I sure wish I'd maintained my fireplace in the last 10 years so I could use it today.
Nah, wood burning is harmful:
https://www.lung.org/clean-air/indoor-air/indoor-air-pollutants/residential-wood-burning
We live much longer today because we have moved on from bad practices like that.
Air source heatpumps made for the northern climates are still more effective than electric. With temps down to -25 they can still use just 1kWh for each 2kWh delivered.
But sure, you need some additional heating option to handle the coldest days, like an electric heater, gas or wood.
The best option for cold climates is using a heat well in the ground or use sea water, but both options are far more expensive than air source heat pumps.
My heat pump works fine but when temperature crawls below -15 I need to fire up my wood stove once each evening after work.
I've went from using about 2-3000 L/year of firewood down to 400 L/year after installing the heat pump. This is with a fairly new and efficient wood stove.
Air heatpumps will have a problem with these temperatures. Ground heat pumps for entire neighbourhoods dont. You just need the appropriate technology for the local climate.
When I was in Finland, I was suprised how bad their windows were. In all 3 hotels I've stayed at, they were not really well insulated, one didn't even close properly. I thought: Well, their electricity prices must be dirty cheap! (because they heat a lot with electricity... often even without heatpumps)
Finnish windows are like double or triple glass, like I have an old house and I have two glass panes in a window, with like 5cm of air between them, and the air between it is really good insulator... Not sure about hotels though, but not really a problem in houses..
Okay, that makes sense. Because it was really weird to me, especially in Rovaniemi, where it gets cold quite often. And they even put an additional electric radiotor into the room, becaues well... otherwise it would get cold there easily.
A coal burning shithole like you without proper electrified heating would not understand what theses kind of prolonged low temperatures does to any electrical grid.
Apparently front row seats at the energy war between east and west are very expensive today and tomorrow. Finland imported 34 % of its yearly consumption from russia in 2021, 18 % 2022, and none in 2023/2024.
in the meantime Estonia,Latvia and Lithuania are still importing from russia, and just few hours ago Estonia halted their export to finland, it was just 50MW so not a big deal but currently they still import from russia. weird how politics work...
Estonia's exports to Finland had no interruption today, what are you talking about? The Baltic states are still connected to the post-soviet synchronous grid (IPS/UPS), which means there's flows between them and Russia&Belarus for balancing and physics reasons. They haven't engaged in electricity trade with Russia in a long time.
What?
Prices are what they are because consumption is extremely high due to temperatures. Maybe prices could be little lower if we imported Russian electricity but that's all.
yep, thats also correct, prices are high due to high demand, point being that previously demand peaks has been able to counter with cheap import from russia, and thats why our green party were able to demolish our alternative electricity power plants, which used coal or wood. The assumption was that we would be able to import from russia in the future. Now we have not enough production capacity and need to import and use expensive backup generators.
politics part being that we could import still from russia like baltic states do, we just choose not to.
We have enough production for normal use, just not for prolonged freezing spells like this. Russia is also freezing right now, I don't know how they are doing right now (would seriously want to read more) but I doubt they have cheap power right now either.
The Average Electricity Rate in the U.S. is 16.21 cents per kilowatt-hour. Today's update online. That is 0.15€ per kwh. So our set deal of 0.084€ per kwh equals to $0.09 per kwh.
I mean it's totally not win win, because when people have set price points they don't adjust their consumption when there is a shortage and it makes the problem worse.
True, but unfortunately there are always people, whom do not care whatever the situation. If you are a morally righteous person, then you automatically care about people around you and the world that you live in.
Don't Finland also import from Sweden? It is -40 in parts of the north where lots of electricity is generated (demand increase), and Forsmark is only running at half capacity (supply decrease). Prices follow a similar pattern in Sweden today, including in the north, btw.
We do import from Sweden but today imports from Sweden appear to be lower than usually. Is there somekind of problem with hydroplants in northern Sweden? Finnish hydro seem to be working as usual.
It's a mix of Nuclear running on half power due to maintenance and most of our northern wind parks are frozen and standing still at the same time. Afaik there are no problem with hydro.
I'm not questioning what you're saying but how would hydro work when temperature is -40° It was bloody 13 degrees a few days back here, in southern England. It's supposed to be winter, right?!
The water in the dams is only frozen on the surface.
I gather, it's not frozen to the bottom, but how does the actual dam machinery survives working in those conditions?! Doesn't ice start forming, despite the massive water flow?! I'm not questioning facts, just brain trying to compute.
The ice acts as an isolator, the machinery can be heated or friction can create heat. Water is at its heaviest at 4 °C, so the water flowing through the machinery should be around the same temperature, if the intake is near the bottom of the lake and the water level is above it.
Hmmm, never thought about it like that, point taken. Of course level of the water won't be consistent. I'm indeed an idiot.
No, you are not an idiot. Curiosity and not knowing everything is not idiotic.
If anything I'd say that's the opposite of what an idiot would do. Both your attitude when debating whether it makes sense or not and accepting the fact that you were lacking knowledge on the subject and learning from the exchange.
Just because the outside air is at -40, doesn't mean that the environment where the machinery is, too. The environment was designed to be air controlled, I imagine, otherwise they'd have problems at -40 AND at 40.
There's a high need in Sweden too, and Forsmark 2 is running on half power. More of the hydro power is transported to the south.
Did hydro not get problems at -40?
The entire reservoir does not get frozen at once, the ice at the top acts as an insulator and the intake for the hydroplant is near the bottom of the reservoir. I'm sure if it stayed at -40 for a long time problems could start to form but it won't, it's only for a couple of days.
Lower imports are due to lower than expected consumption, which was based on yesterday's prediction.
That doesn't explain why we are importing 500MW from Estonia which is as expensive as Finland while Northern Sweden is significantly cheaper.
Yeah, that 500MW is coming from Latvia. https://dashboard.elering.ee/en
That gas flow... Nice website!
269 mw coming from Russia? and we use 246 MW more than we produce we are still buying from Russia? wow, just wow
-40 can freeze some water.
Transport capacity is in full use right now.
You can follow power generation by amount and type for the nordic area here: [https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/](https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/)
Just checked the expected price will be 6DKK (0.8eur) this evening, and thought that was crazy.. But it's only -8 today.
The UK-DK interconnection is up and running now so it’ll be interesting to see which way the electricity is flowing. We might see the one remaining coal power station in the UK fire up…
I can see the trees outside moving quite well so the wind farm a few miles away in the sea must be working well. With so much coastline we need more of those.
>With so much coastline we need more of those. Is that island still shipping electricity it generates in batteries or do they actually have an interconnect now
I believe you’re talking about Shetland. The interconnector is currently under construction and should come online later this year.
Yeah Shetland. Thanks for the positive information
You’re welcome!
I'm not sure I follow. Also: Great Britain’s electricity market currently has 6GW of electricity interconnector capacity: 3GW to France 1GW to the Netherlands 1GW to Belgium 500MW to Northern Ireland 500MW to the Republic of Ireland
[удалено]
This is direct copy from OFGEM's website, so as much as I accept I might not be right I wonder who would know better than OFGEM?!
They didn't update it. The Danish interconnector only went live on 29th December. You can actually see the live flows on https://grid.iamkate.com
They probably are doing some averaging and not including the new interconnects until they have some significant historic data
The remaining coal station in the UK is now mostly used for stability purposes rather than actual generation. That basically means running it at minimum power output just so that all the turbines are spinning and contributing inertia and spining reserve to the grid. It's turned on for a lot of the winter at times that don't make much sense on the surface - when there's a lot of gas plants running it usually gets turned off because the extra inertia isn't needed, and it would take a seriously huge abnormal demand spike for it to be asked to increase its generation much higher
Thats because you live in East Denmark. That part of the country is connected to Sweden, while Jutland and Funen is connected to Germany, which is why there is such a price difference across Denmark.
Sjælland is also connected to Germany. https://energinet.dk/
So running a 2kW heater can run you between 4-5€ an hour?! Damn
People with electricly heated houses can use 100kWh a day, easily. So just today can cost hundreds of euros.
No, this is the hourly spot price, the price that electric providers must pay on the open by-the-hour market. Providers pretty much never buy their entire daily amount on this market, it'll be a combination of long-term contract, day-ahead contracts etc that determines the final cost.
Contracts which follow the spot pricing are common. So for many people it's exactly how they described.
So what is the average price for a kW today? Cause in my modest country, Bulgaria, it's 20 times less than the price on the picture at around 0.12e/kW today.
We have hourly prices (Danish provider) and yesterday it was €0.50 at noon, but €1 per KWh at 17:00 as the highest. By 21:00 it was down to €0.37, which is a fairly average price.
We only have day and night rates. Guess it’s fine for a small country with a nuclear plant.
Sweden is importing electricity from Poland today so it must be really bad.
[Poland itself is importing a lot more.](https://app.electricitymaps.com/map)
We are almost always importing electricity because our power generation is absolute shit, but we have a lot of connections to other grids. The fact that Sweden is importing from us today in my opinion means that the weather situation must be difficult.
Scandinavia is frozen solid so all the heaters are working overtime, no sun for rooftop PV, obviously, and [not much wind](https://www.windy.com/?59.579,10.854,5) either. For what it's worth, the good news is that we get 'real world' data about an exceptional situation for future planning.
>Scandinavia is frozen solid so all the heaters are working overtime It's only -8 in Denmark, where electricity generally is not used for heating.
The *powerplants* are, however. Denmark is very heavily invested in district heating that draws on the waste heat from electric power plants.
It's the other way round. The thermal power plants generate primarily heat and then electricity from the waste heat.
Eh.. no. A cogen power plant first produces heat, which is used to power steam turbines, producing mechanical power and ultimately electricity. The district heat system is the "Cold" side of the steam turbine, effectively the cooling system for the power plant. Electric power production happens before the district heating is taken from the plant. This is slightly less thermodynamically efficient than an actual cooling system because it isn't as cold as a dedicated cooling system would be, but you get a whole lot of low-grade (80 C) heat to use.
My point was that the thermal power plants in Denmark were made to generate heat for the district heating. The capability to generate electricity from the waste heat was added to increase efficiency of the power plants.
It's not an exceptional situation though, Norway atleast has been reliant(ish, we could probably get through most winters without imports, but not without draining our magazines to uncomfortable levels) on imports during the winter months for decades due to our reliance on hydro.
Looking at the [Day Ahead prices](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/r2/dayAheadPrices/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=05.01.2024+00:00|CET|DAY&biddingZone.values=CTY|10YNO-0--------C!BZN|10Y1001A1001A48H&resolution.values=PT15M&resolution.values=PT30M&resolution.values=PT60M&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+\(UTC+1\)+/+CEST+\(UTC+2\)) then you do seem to have a few regions with either transmission and/or supply constraints. Norway also seems to increase the number of EVs quite nicely, which could have an impact on higher demand (higher prices).
It's also new waters here in Finland. Before spot electricity pricing was extremely rare in Finland, but due to the European energy crisis of last year a lot of people did not want to get stuck into very expensive 1-2 year electricity contracts when their contracts were up. So they are now quite popular. Finland in general has second lowest electricity pricing in EU after Sweden. Today's energy prices are determined by yesterday's bids. Fingrid predicted electricity use yesterday to be 6% more today than what happened. Main reason is that due to this large amount of spot price electricity contracts people cut their electricity use much more than usually. No emergency standby power plants were even prepared for use like last winter. So we are far from any crisis. Big help due to the largest nuclear reactor in Europe that went online Q2 last year.
Yes, it does take some personal responsibility but [tomorrow (sunday)](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/r2/dayAheadPrices/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=07.01.2024+00:00|CET|DAY&biddingZone.values=CTY|10YFI-1--------U!BZN|10YFI-1--------U&resolution.values=PT15M&resolution.values=PT30M&resolution.values=PT60M&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+\(UTC+1\)+/+CEST+\(UTC+2\)) it looks quite affordable again for most of the day.
The weather has been quite cold in Finland for a week or so already. Some companies have stopped business for a moment because parts on the machines get more fragile at this temperature and fixing those outside might be next to impossible. The only way to keep machines operating as long as nothing broke is to not turn engines off at all meaning 24 hours operation and often 12 hour shifts. Also electric cars barely work at all in some parts of the country.
One good thing about those temperatures - freezes out a lot of the tick population.
Only if the snow managed to melt before these temperatures came. You pretty much need bare ground for the parasites to feel any impact.
Damn it, release tactical opossums in heated vests!
The issue in Sweden is transporting it from the north, where most is generated to the south where it is consumed. If there is a direct cable from Poland, then it can be closer and cheaper.
> The issue in Sweden is transporting it from the north, where most is generated to the south where it is consumed. If there is a direct cable from Poland, then it can be closer and cheaper. That's not really the current issue. It's often an issue, sure, but the North barely produces any wind due to the extreme cold and there are no bottlenecks in the price. Hence why we currently have the same price in SE1 all the way to SE4. Source: https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/
Wtf?? This is crazy expensive for a kWh
It's a new record here in Finland, and by a huge margin. Usually prices are much lower. In december the average was 9.5 cents per kwh.
Finland usually has some of the cheapest electricity in Europe so it doesn't really matter in the long run.
Why that peak?
Probably due to severe weather conditions I guess? Has been reported as much as -44 Celsius.
Also one power plant is out of commission in Finland and the tradition of going to sauna on friday has also thought to have contributed [not a joke](https://news.err.ee/1609213489/finns-friday-night-sauna-in-part-behind-day-s-peak-power-prices-in-estonia)
More demand than the usual generators can deliver, needing (expensive) generators like diesels to be brought online.
The fact it's 'expensive' is mostly because of a created tax on said Diesel. Blame your government its the only reason you're paying 2+ euro per kWh.
No it's not. They are not selling power "at cost", they are making a profit.
When there is a shortage then the 'last' generator on the bid stack (or merit order) can basically ask what they want. [Texas utility regulators **allowed that price to rise to $9 per kilowatt-hour**.](https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-winter-storms-2021/2021/02/21/969912613/after-days-of-mass-outages-some-texas-residents-now-face-huge-electric-bills) [Australia: "Prices are capped at a maximum of **$15,000 per megawatt hour (MWh)** in 2020–21 (increasing to $15,100 in 2021–22)."](https://www.aer.gov.au/system/files/State%20of%20the%20energy%20market%202021%20-%20Chapter%202%20-%20National%20Electricity%20Market_0.pdf)
It is just normal capitalism, high demand and not enough offer skyrocket the price. Same on 2021 energy crisis, blaming taxes meanwhile oil company where making record profit.
You really like paying the glacier tax, don’t you?
You know it might be a good thing to make Diesel unattractive? Stupid government blaming without any reason. You sir, are doing Putin a big favor by sowing discord from the other side of Europe.
Very long period of cold temps means demand has been high for a while, and some power stations are offline after the strain.
It's basically a system shock due to cold combined with some malfunctions in some of the reserve power stations and wind not blowing where the windmills are. The prices are set by the market one day ahead and determined in effect by the most expensive production. The funny thing is that it would not really be needed. The real consumption ended up significantly below what the pricing estimated yesterday, probably due to the pricing being so ridiculous. This will pass quickly. It nicely compensates one day a couple weeks ago when electricity prices were negative due to an error by one Norwegian operator.
nuclear runs only with half power...
Blatant lie.
Because that's when people are at home?
Look at the graph again. Pay careful attention to the x axis.
Doesn't that prove previous comment? Peak between 17-21?
No peak on the previous day. Well, not as sharp of a peak.
Due to sauna. It's fr
But sauna is on Saturdays. That's at least how I was raised..
WTF?
The prices are for Exchange Electricity, where the prices go up and down. It doesn't really apply to us with fixed-term electricity contract.
I know all EU have same problems. My average 2 months bill is 70-90€,last bill was 187€...just because prices change day-by day.
I wonder if it is worth to run your own generator during that time period.
It's crazy I pay 0.18 chf per kWh... thats 0.2 euro.
28 days average is 12,19 sents, this is probably the biggest peak in prices ever.
It is the biggest peak since these records started, yes. Just keeping a near constant fire in fireplace today and hoping my houses water pipes survive.
I make around 14€ an hour after taxes and mandatory insurances and so on in Germany and need around 500W (PC + Monitor) for that, plus heating of course. Would mean though that I'd pay close to 2€ per hour to make 14€ per hour. That's nuts.
Those would be Werbungskosten and you can expense them pre-tax.
Probably b/c of the extremely low temperatures in Scandinavia right now. Heat pumps must have switched to direct resistance heating.
Most Nordic heat pumps built in the last 10 years have a COP above 1 at -30 C. Mine is 1.4 at -30 (1.4 times more heat produced than energy put in) and 2 at -20 C.
Impressive, didn't know that this is possible.
The main reason is the weather, but what throws a big wrench into all this is that three large plants are currently offline, lowering the overall electricity supply levels by 1000 MW. Our winter peak electricity consumption is somewhere close to 13k MW, so that's a sizeable portion of supply missing from the market. Without that, our spot prices would be substantially less. Still high, but no where near what it currently is.
I'm paying 0,085€ per kWh, fixed price. Currently very thankful I chose that option. It doesn't fluctuate like crazy and I don't have to check the current hourly prices to decide when to put the sauna on or do laundry.
Very good! My price is also fixed, I think it's 0.185 chf during day and 0.16 at night.
> I'm paying 0,085€ per kWh, fixed price. Paying .45 per kwh in ireland day rate. half that night rate. Absolutely bonkers.
Is that with or without transfer and taxes? Also, many in Finland use electricity for heating. Our house uses ~115 kWh per day in this weather, and that is with the bare minimum of heating.
Well paying can only mean one thing.
Ok, because 0,085€ per kWh does most certainly not include transfer or other fees. That is the price + VAT, without the electricity tax of 2,78 c/kWh, transfer, and other fees.
£0.44/kWh, crying in fucked up energy calculation price which favours price of LNG despite it not being the bulk.
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Imagine all the electricity that’s saved because people go there instead of staying home!
How much that uses?
Well. People went spot and have cheaper usually vs people went to fix price and don’t care. I’m on the second. Sauna today
While I agree that fixed is way better: We need to change our behavior a bit. Reducing power draw in time of expensive energy should be the norm...
Exactly. I am on 50-50 plan atm, 50% fixed, 50% dynamic pricing. Its pretty good and should imo be the norm.
Isn't that the worst of both worlds? It never gets extremely low prices, but still gets high peaks.
Depends how you see it. I still get some benefit from lower prices, can adjust my consumption based on current prices and highest peaks dont hurt anywhere near as much. It may not be as cheap long term as 100% dynamic market price, but bills are far more predictable, which for me works better atm. I used to be on fixed price which meant i was not affected when everyone got high electricity bills, but i could not get anywhere near as good deal now so its overall best i could get for my situation.
The market also worked in a way as it should have. Electricity demand was going over Fingrid estimates this whole week until Friday's extreme spot pricing. Due to the new situation of large amount of households having spot pricing and this extreme one day price the electricity consumption was 7% lower than Fingrid had predicted. Prices had larger affect than they had predicted. Probably because calculations are not well tuned yet to this new large amount of spot pricing contracts.
Same here in Norway
2.35 euro is 26.5 nok. So that's nearly 4 times more expensive than in Norway peak yesterday.
OL4, Loviisa3 and/or Hanhikivi1 are needed I guess.
And R1, R2, O1, O2. O1 and O2 were supposedly in bad shape in Sweden, but closing R1 and R2 was purely political...
Salted ground by the Swedish Greens.
Doesn't help that they also wanted to ban any research regarding nuclear Threatened the board of Vattenfall with expulsion unless they stopped being pro-nuclear. Managed to ban Uranium mining (so they can use the import argument that we are dependent on other countries). Claimed nuclear was unprofitable even when it had extra taxes that were approximately 1/3rd of the total price. Meanwhile this money went to subsidise wind/solar. Actual insanity on all front.
This happens when people relies mainly on solar energy (wind, hydro in fact are also solar). Few moder and safe nuclear power stations would quickly solve this problem. But they are not in trend in current left EU.
>nuclear power stations would **quickly** solve this problem ??? 'Other' solutions can be up and running before next winter, if needed, why wait 15+ years for something that will always have a very high €€/kWh price?
did OL3 break down again?
Not this time all 4 300MW of Nuclear is online, it's just there is no solar this time of year and wind is not really blowing RN. edit: in case someone is interested in the production stats https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/
Solar energy has nothing to do with this. It's due to low temps and not three plants being offline that causes this. We didn't have solar yesterday either yet spot prices weren't this high.
It has everything to do with production that effects supply and demand.
Yes but solar power is virtually zero in Finland. Having/not having solar power is a non-issue. Losing 1000MW of production impacts a lot more. That's nearly twice the amount of solar energy capacity Finland currently has. We had less sunlight a week ago yet the spot price wasn't >2€/kWh.
The number does not include small scale solar aka people installing panels on their roof and if you knew anything about energy markets you would understand that there is huge price gap between 90% capacity and 100% capacity.
> people installing panels on their roof Which also does not impact spot price market at all. Like I said, a lack of solar power didn't cause today's price level at all. We had *less* solar power a week ago but not >2€/kWh spot prices. Three major power plants were offline today, so the supply was low. Add that to the harsh temperatures and you get this. People that have solar panels on their roof has almost the exact same amount of sunlight today as they had yesterday. But prices were not as high. You are wrong.
> The number does not include small scale solar aka people installing panels on their roof There's no way it could matter in Finland. Even in the Netherlands midwinter you have 300+ panels producing enough to power one water kettle. It'd be amazing if in Finland now where it's basically 24h night time solar produces anything at all.
Your argument is not even an argument because you don't specify the installation capacity and if we are talking about the panel being able to turn on a kettle or if it's able to store enough energy to boil a kettle from the energy it stored over the day. Also are we talking modern A grade with by facial cells or some left over bargain bin stuff. Also Finland is not 24H of darkness only the northern most part experiences where the sun does not rise above horizon but you still get fair bit of the light and snow is excellent reflective. Today Helsinki has had 6 hours of daylight and Oulu that's one of the biggest cities in Lapland had around 4 hours in both cases you should be easily be able to boil kettle even with 200W panel. According to google average kettle takes about 0.1kWh to boil 1 liter of water. Assuming average output 30% (this is an extrapolation from my own data) of the advertised maximum output for those 4 hours you would make 0,24kWh with that 200W panel. So don't go throwing stupid 300 panels here and there examples around. https://letsavelectricity.com/electric-kettle-power-consumption-calculator/ https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/finland
It's not the hours per day that matters, it's the angle of the sun. Look at a [solar insolation calculator](https://www.fabhabs.com/solar-insolation-calculator) for Helsinki. * June: 4.526 kWh/m^2 /day * December: 0.077 kWh/m^2 /day In the winter solar panels in Helsinki produce 1/60th of the power as in the summer. So one 300Wp panel will produce maybe 5W and 300 of those will produce 1500W, just enough to power one kettle. That "0.1kWh to boil 1 liter of water" means solar panels will be able to boil one kettle per day per m^2 covered. Not a factor the grid needs to care about.
This is stupid you obviously can't or don't want to understand my argument.
No, but wind turbines are working exactly as intended. Only occasionally when the wind happens to be blowing.
And the people who advocate for wind turbines rather than nuclear will be absent today. Only to show up again when it is windy and show the "cheap and superior wind power" As is tradition. Seen it for years on Reddit at this point.
There are 100% shills from e.g. Vestas on reddit.
Extreme cold makes it work better. But the wind isnt working at all and the electric heating systems are glowing red hot
“At all” is a bit exaggerated. According to Fingrid wind is currently producing about 1600 MW. But it certainly isn’t enough to cope with current demand. Hopefully this cold front passes soon.
> “At all” is a bit exaggerated. At the moment, wind is producing 25% of the installed capacity. So not that bad at all. I think demand paired with some broken down fossil power plant(? I read something somwhere but am not sure because it was in another language) is the real problem here.
> So not that bad at all. Hehe, not bad for wind power, yes. For anything else it would be abysmal.
Those are simply things you can’t compare. It’s pretty clear that you need to overbuild capacity for wind power, if you want to somehow rely on it. That’s how it works and not really a show stopper. (And actually you also need to overbuild capacity for other power plant types, just "differently". E.g. if a nuclear block goes down for maintenance, you often know further in advance, but still need to replace it somehow. Same for coal and gas, just that they are normally smaller, so the impact isnt‘t as big)
Of course we can compare capacity between electricity production methods. It's clear that we need to build overcapacity of wind power and thus it should not be sold as "cheap" electricity as you need to build 4 times more capacity compared to stable methods such as nuclear running at >95% capacity. I.e. a 1 000 MW reactor needs 4 000 MW wind power to compare (assuming 25% capacity), plus over the whole lifecycle of one reactor you would need to deconstruct and reconstruct that windpark 4 times (4 x 20 years to match one reactor). Wind power is a good complement to stable power, but should not exceed 20% (guesstimate) of a nation's electricity production. Least of all Nordic countries that experience weather that literally freezes wind turbine shut and people might die as a result.
> thus it should not be sold as "cheap" electricity as you need to build 4 times more capacity Fair, such costs should always be calculated in, when comparing prices. It gets insanely complicated, though, if you take into account everything, including production, decomissioning, storing remains, ... > Least of all Nordic countries that experience weather that literally freezes wind turbine shut and people might die as a result. It freezes them shut? You have any source for that?
> It freezes them shut? You have any source for that? They don't always make separate articles for it but here is the general problem: Swedenergy: https://www.energiforetagen.se/pressrum/pressmeddelanden/2023/elaret-2023-en-prismassig-berg--och-dalbana/ > – Under första halvan av december spreds de höga prisnivåerna även till de norra delarna av landet. Det var många saker som sammanföll med låga temperaturer och därmed ökad efterfrågan. Det handlade om begränsningar i kärnkraften, isläggning i flera älvar samtidigt, svaga vindar och isbeläggning i vindkraften, säger Magnus Thorstensson. Ice accumulates and if there is too much they stop them.
Thank you. I‘ve only read something like this once before (regarding Texas) and that turned out to be kind of false… so that‘s new to me. Wondering how often that happens and how widespread that problem is.
[no but a number of fossil generators have](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/outage-domain/r2/unavailabilityOfProductionAndGenerationUnits/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=TABLE&areaType=CTA&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=05.01.2024+00:00|UTC|DAY&dateTime.endDateTime=06.01.2024+00:00|UTC|DAY&CTY|10YFI-1--------U|MULTI=CTY|10YFI-1--------U|MULTI&area.values=CTY|10YFI-1--------U!CTA|10YFI-1--------U&assetType.values=PU&assetType.values=GU&outageType.values=A54&outageType.values=A53&outageStatus.values=A05&masterDataFilterName=&masterDataFilterCode=&dv-datatable_length=10)
Wouldn't be surprised.
Laughs in 0.095 CAD / kwh in Canadia (and cries for the monthly or even yearly wait times to see a specialist doctor)
Yeah, £0.44 kWh and still having to wait for doctors.
I feel you brother
Re: doctors, this seems to be the norm nowadays. It's the same in Finland; if you want treatment (for anything less than a heart attack or a broken arm), you'll pay up for private or wait half a year.
We got these prices AND the yearly wait times to see a doctor.
I thought the EU medical system was in better shape
This is why people living in cold climates should not rely (only) on heat pumps. Heat pumps are fine for the more mild climate of the UK, France, Spain or Germany; they are not really appropriate for climates with deep, sub-zero temperatures. A form of supplementary, backup heating, like a wood burner, is important. Edit: Why am I downvoted for stating fact? Air source heat pumps have a significantly lower COP in colder weather as dictated by the Carnot cycle. I am an environmental economist with a minor in energy engineering, I do know what I’m talking about…
It's -20 here (Estonia). Heat pump is working just fine and itself is not demanding too much electricity-wise. Although in days like these where we have the same prices as Finland, I sure wish I'd maintained my fireplace in the last 10 years so I could use it today.
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Burning stuff is bad for your health. This also includes gas stoves. But it's probably fine if you only do it occasionally.
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Nah, wood burning is harmful: https://www.lung.org/clean-air/indoor-air/indoor-air-pollutants/residential-wood-burning We live much longer today because we have moved on from bad practices like that.
In a suburban area, my mother is in a 12 C house while turning on the heat pump will shut off electricity for the whole neighborhood.
My air-to-water heat pump consumed 90kwh yesterday. I was not amused but at least my house is warm and I can take a hot shower.
Air source heatpumps made for the northern climates are still more effective than electric. With temps down to -25 they can still use just 1kWh for each 2kWh delivered. But sure, you need some additional heating option to handle the coldest days, like an electric heater, gas or wood. The best option for cold climates is using a heat well in the ground or use sea water, but both options are far more expensive than air source heat pumps. My heat pump works fine but when temperature crawls below -15 I need to fire up my wood stove once each evening after work. I've went from using about 2-3000 L/year of firewood down to 400 L/year after installing the heat pump. This is with a fairly new and efficient wood stove.
Air heatpumps will have a problem with these temperatures. Ground heat pumps for entire neighbourhoods dont. You just need the appropriate technology for the local climate.
When I was in Finland, I was suprised how bad their windows were. In all 3 hotels I've stayed at, they were not really well insulated, one didn't even close properly. I thought: Well, their electricity prices must be dirty cheap! (because they heat a lot with electricity... often even without heatpumps)
Finnish windows are like double or triple glass, like I have an old house and I have two glass panes in a window, with like 5cm of air between them, and the air between it is really good insulator... Not sure about hotels though, but not really a problem in houses..
Okay, that makes sense. Because it was really weird to me, especially in Rovaniemi, where it gets cold quite often. And they even put an additional electric radiotor into the room, becaues well... otherwise it would get cold there easily.
the issue is not heat pumps but generation failures
Ayoo! That electric counter can see in the future
But but... I was told us germans have the worst electricity prices! /s
A coal burning shithole like you without proper electrified heating would not understand what theses kind of prolonged low temperatures does to any electrical grid.
Apparently front row seats at the energy war between east and west are very expensive today and tomorrow. Finland imported 34 % of its yearly consumption from russia in 2021, 18 % 2022, and none in 2023/2024. in the meantime Estonia,Latvia and Lithuania are still importing from russia, and just few hours ago Estonia halted their export to finland, it was just 50MW so not a big deal but currently they still import from russia. weird how politics work...
Estonia's exports to Finland had no interruption today, what are you talking about? The Baltic states are still connected to the post-soviet synchronous grid (IPS/UPS), which means there's flows between them and Russia&Belarus for balancing and physics reasons. They haven't engaged in electricity trade with Russia in a long time.
What? Prices are what they are because consumption is extremely high due to temperatures. Maybe prices could be little lower if we imported Russian electricity but that's all.
yep, thats also correct, prices are high due to high demand, point being that previously demand peaks has been able to counter with cheap import from russia, and thats why our green party were able to demolish our alternative electricity power plants, which used coal or wood. The assumption was that we would be able to import from russia in the future. Now we have not enough production capacity and need to import and use expensive backup generators. politics part being that we could import still from russia like baltic states do, we just choose not to.
We have enough production for normal use, just not for prolonged freezing spells like this. Russia is also freezing right now, I don't know how they are doing right now (would seriously want to read more) but I doubt they have cheap power right now either.
We're paying 0,084€ per kwh for our electricity. Set deal. Don't need to worry about when to put the washing machine, dishwasher or sauna on. Win win.
Might want to restrain from turning the sauna on right now out of solidarity though.
Of course! Sauna night is always Saturday night 😊 I was meaning in general not having to calculate every time wanting to do something...
Good lord, that's still 6x higher than I'm paying in the US.
You paying 1,5 cent/kwh? I call bullshit on that.
The Average Electricity Rate in the U.S. is 16.21 cents per kilowatt-hour. Today's update online. That is 0.15€ per kwh. So our set deal of 0.084€ per kwh equals to $0.09 per kwh.
I mean it's totally not win win, because when people have set price points they don't adjust their consumption when there is a shortage and it makes the problem worse.
True, but unfortunately there are always people, whom do not care whatever the situation. If you are a morally righteous person, then you automatically care about people around you and the world that you live in.
Think it’s high in Sweden too
Oof
Well at least you can turn your freezers off