Last year, the wholesale price of electricity in Finland was negative or at zero for a total of more than a month, according to the statistics compiled by the Energy Industry.
Last year, the wholesale price of electricity in Finland was negative for 725 hours and zero for 175 hours. Converted to days, this is 37.5 days.
According to Energy Industry, the total tax-free consumer price was less than half a cent per kilowatt-hour for about a quarter, or three months of the year’s hours.
On top of the wholesale price is the electricity transfer fee and tax, as well as the margin collected by the electricity seller from the price in exchange electricity contracts. Therefore, the price paid for electricity was practically not free or even negative even for those who entered into an exchange-linked electricity contract for such a large part of the year than the wholesale prices alone. Those who signed a fixed-price electricity contract are not directly affected by the negative prices, although this may be reflected in the price level.
According to statistics compiled by the Energy Industry, the number of negative prices in the wholesale market has grown rapidly in recent years. In 2022, the price of electricity was negative for 27 hours and in 2023 for 467 hours.
According to the energy industry, the prevalence of negative prices is mainly due to the increase in wind power production in Finland. When it’s windy, more wind electricity is available, and this lowers prices at those times.
The horror week raised the average price
The wholesale price of electricity in Finland in 2024 was on average 45.7 euros per megawatt hour, or 4.57 cents per kilowatt hour. According to the energy industry, this means a return to the prices before the electricity crisis of recent years.
As a counterweight to the negative hours, the price of electricity rose to more than 200 euros per megawatt hour, i.e. more than 20 cents per kilowatt hour for a total of 178 hours. Converted to days, this is about a week.
High price spikes were seen especially in the first week of 2024, when the prices seen increased the average price of the whole year by 8.8 percent. Therefore, almost a tenth of the consumer’s energy bill was made during the first week of the year, sums up in the bulletin of the Energy industry.
The third cheapest electricity
According to statistics compiled by the energy industry, electricity in Finland was the third cheapest on average in the European Economic Area last year. The cheapest electricity was in Sweden and the second cheapest in Norway, when comparing electricity prices in European capitals.
However, there were more both negative and expensive prices in the Finnish price range than in Sweden, Norway, Germany or France. However, there were clearly more expensive hours in Estonia than in Finland.
The falling out of play of the Estlink 2 electric cable, which broke at Christmas, will bring uncertainty to the prices on the coldest days in Finland this year as well, estimates the director responsible for the energy market of Energiateollisuus ry Pekka Salomaa in the bulletin. However, the average price of electricity can decrease due to a cable failure, because the export of electricity to Estonia will decrease with it.