Concentration of e-commerce|In recent years, the sale of electricity has rapidly concentrated in the hands of large players.
Helsinki the city’s energy company Helen buys the electricity company Väreen. The parties do not disclose the purchase price. Väre will continue as its own company owned by Helen, and the change of ownership will not affect customers’ electricity contracts.
In recent years, the sale of electricity has been heavily concentrated on increasingly large companies. Regional electricity companies have combined their electricity sales operations and since then some large players have also merged.
Selling electricity is a low-margin activity, where the skill of risk management is emphasized.
Ripple was founded in 2018. Among other things, the electricity sales of Savon Voima, Kuopio Energia, Lappeenranta Energia and Kymenlaakso electricity were transferred to it. Over a year ago, Tampere’s energy sales merged with Väre.
At the beginning of next year, Lumme, owned by Suur-Savo electricity, will merge with Oomi to become Finland’s largest electricity seller. The deal was said to have received the blessing of the competition authorities on Tuesday.
After the merger, Oomi has more than 800,000 customers, which would mean a market share of about 21 percent of the electricity retail market. Oomi’s owners include, among others, the energy companies of Vantaa, Oulu, Lahti and Pori, and in the future also Suur-Savo electricity, the owner of Lumpee.
The other largest electricity retailers are Fortum, Helen and Vattenfall.
Associations concern companies that sell electrical energy. On that side, competition is free, meaning consumers and companies can buy electricity from any company operating in Finland. That’s why market shares can fluctuate a lot.
Instead, the transmission of electricity must always be purchased from the regional network company of the place of consumption.
“The goal is to utilize the strong operating models of both companies in the development of customer experience and services to become even better, which brings a meaningful advantage to all our customers”, CEO of Helen Olli Sirkka says in Väreen’s announcement.