NEWS ANALYSIS: To export electricity, you also need a buyer
Nuclear power for export requires more than plenty of generating capacity
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By Heikki Arola
Should Finland be turned into a country that exports electricity generated at nuclear power plants? This is a topic that politicians have been debating recently.
The debate is a bit on the late side. Finland is already exporting electricity from time to time, and nuclear power is part of the mix.
A surprising factor in discussion among experts in the electricity market is that many seem to have forgotten how the electricity market works.
As a product, electricity is no ordinary commodity. It is produced using different methods, but the final product is always the same thing - electricity, which each producer puts into the common network. After that, it is impossible to say what is nuclear, hydroelectric, or some other kind of electricity.
In the past year, Finland exported 3.3 terawatt hours of electricity to Sweden. This was not very much, but it was more than four per cent of Finland’s total production of 77 terawatt hours.
Last year Finland’s nuclear power plants produced a quarter of the country's total output - 25 per cent. Thus, it is possible to calculate that Finland exported at least 25 per cent of 3.3 terawatt hours to Sweden - that is, slightly less than one terawatt hour.
Finland imported 2.8 terawatt hours of electricity from Sweden.
In Sweden, the share of nuclear power is nearly half of electricity production, which means that Finland imported more than one terawatt hour of nuclear power from the west. The balance is nearly even.
Electricity imports from Russia along the Vyborg border cable were 11 terawatt hours. In Russian the proportion of nuclear electricity is only about ten per cent. Finland imported about as much nuclear electricity from Russia as it did from Sweden - about one terawatt hour.
So the combined flow of nuclear electricity among neighbouring countries is quite small, but last year Finland imported twice as much nuclear electricity as it exported.
The present government wants to significantly increase Finnish self-sufficiency in electricity. The programme was made public last spring, when the government presented its climate and energy strategy to Parliament.
According to the strategy, Finland seeks to be self-sufficient both in the output capacity and in the volume of electric energy. The aim is that there would be no need for imports from Russia, and that the country’s own production capacity will cover the needs during times of peak consumption. That time is usually in the early part of each year during spells of cold weather.
The government’s goal would amount to a significant turnaround from current policy.
Finland joined the Nordic electricity market so that it might import electricity form Sweden and Norway, if necessary, and that it would not have to prepare for peak loads with its own equipment.
Working as an incentive for exchanging electricity among the Nordic Countries is the price of electricity. When demand increases, the price rises. This is an incentive for producers of hydroelectric power in Sweden and Norway to sell their electricity. Especially Norway’s hydroelectric power, which is easily stored, works as an efficient regulator.
If Finland wants to be self-sufficient in peak consumption, it means that Finland would have excess production capacity almost all the time. Will expensive plants be left idle if there does not happen to be demand in neighbouring countries?
Expensive nuclear power plants are not the same as hydroelectric plants, which can be operated at any desired output, or not at all. A nuclear power plant always operates at full capacity when it is on.
The government’s programme contains a silent assumption that only Finland has imagined that it should seek self-sufficiency, and that the neighbours in the same market area would have a chronic shortage of electricity.
It is not possible under existing Nordic agreements to implement the idea put forward by National Coalition Party chairman Jyrki Katainen that nuclear power could be excluded from electricity exports.
In such a case, all electricity transfer abroad should be banned, because it is impossible to distinguish nuclear electricity from the other kinds.
And what about imports from Russia? It is ordinary commercial activity, which takes place as long as goods there are cheaper, and as long as it brings profits to the seller and the middleman. The Finnish government is unlikely to start cutting the border cable in Ylläkkälä.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 16.9.2009
HEIKKI AROLA / Helsingin Sanomat
heikki.arola@hs.fi
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| 22.9.2009 - THIS WEEK |
 NEWS ANALYSIS: To export electricity, you also need a buyer |
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