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.
The orderly conduct of duties, security of supply, a sustainable operating culture, offering a transmission platform for clean energy generation:
this is Fingrid’s responsibility.
The Network Code for Emergency and Restoration (NC ER) specifies the common requirements for handling emergency, blackout and restoration states in the power system. NC ER harmonises the operation of power systems throughout the EU and with Third Countries.
The transmission system is designed with the objective of maintaining a large transfer capacity so it is not necessary to limit power transmission. This ensures that there is a single price area in Finland.
In mid-June, several disruptions occurred simultaneously in the regions around the border between Argentina and Uruguay, resulting in a large-scale power cut that left 48 million people without electricity. Timo Kaukonen, Manager of Operational Planning at Fingrid, answers questions about disruptions.
