The Nordic Balancing Model is an enormous, multi-year development program that is being conducted on a national and pan-Nordic level. The project will have a major impact on Fingrid, as well as all electricity market parties.
We asked four electricity market specialists how they see electricity markets developing and the Nordic Balancing Model progressing as representatives of their organisations. The responses reveal concerns over the continued transparency of electricity markets and the costs of the Nordic balancing model. There is work still to be done, as the 15-minute imbalance settlement period will require a substantial change to electricity metering.
On the electricity market, the constraining factor for the transmission grid is the amount of electricity that can be transmitted at any one time. The Flow based calculation method enables transmission capacity usage to be optimised according to demand for electrical energy.
Reserve markets are undergoing a transformation thanks to Nordic collaboration on balance management.
The growth in Finnish wind power has been rapid, and it now accounts for about ten per cent of Finland’s electricity generation. Almost 1,000 megawatts of new wind power is being built
in Finland every year.
The coronavirus crisis has highlighted the significance of cooperation and advance exercises in safeguarding the reliability of supply. The energy sector can provide examples of effective practices in this regard.
For the first time, the price of electricity in the day-ahead market in Finland and Sweden turned negative for a few hours in February 2020 and again in July. On the road towards a climate-neutral power system, it is likely that electricity prices will turn negative again for a few occasional hours.
Sector integration means bringing the various energy sectors together to enable them to balance out each other’s peaks in consumption and generation. Electricity, heat, gas and transport will be interconnected to provide mutual support to each other. But what does this mean for the power system and the transmission grid?
Wind turbines are stopped during severe storms when the wind speed exceeds 25–30 metres per second for a sustained period.
Such storms are rare in Finland.
Fingrid’s customer organisations are working to implement the requirements of the EU network code on electricity emergency and restoration. The 24-hour operability requirement and automatic under-frequency load shedding system must be implemented by December 2022.
