The emergency shutdown of one reactor at the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant raised the price of electricity in Finland to a record level on Thursday.
The price of ‘balancing power’ — used to maintain balance between generation and consumption — rarely rises to several hundred euros per megawatt-hour in Finland.
However, on Thursday the price spiked to 3,500 euros at 1 pm, shortly after the shutdown of the Olkiluoto 2 reactor. The price was 139 euros MWh at the same time the day before.
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The spike lasted only an hour, as semi-automatic systems boosted hydropower production in Finland and electricity imports from Sweden.
A similar price hike was observed only one other time in Finland, according to Timo Kaukonen, planning manager of Finland’s transmission system operator, Fingrid.
In mid-April, an outage in the same Olkiluoto reactor also hiked up the price to 3,500 euros.
Electricity sufficiency not at risk
The shutdown of the Olkiluoto 2 reactor led to an unexpected loss of 880-megawatt hours of electricity production. In total, Finland's electricity production has been around 9,000 to 10,000-megawatt-hours in recent days.
Balancing power reserves are maintained by the joint Nordic system, for which Fingrid accepts purchase and sale offers from large electricity producers and consumers in Finland.
Fingrid has the authority to limit electricity consumption in Finland if there is a danger of a shortage of power.
According to Kaukonen, Finland's electricity sufficiency was not however at risk on Thursday and the company did not have to use reserve power.
The owner of the Olkiluoto power plant, TVO, said on Friday that the failure occurred when warmer-than-usual water entered the cleaning system of the reactor, causing a momentary peak in the steam line's radiation measurement which triggered the safety systems.
The plant unit was not producing electricity on Friday. TVO Senior Vice President Sami Jakonen said he believed the reactor could resume electricity generation as early as Sunday.
According to industry lobby Finnish Energy, nuclear power was the largest source of electricity generation in Finland last year, accounting for 27 percent of production.