High winds propelled wind power stations in the Nordics to produce electricity at full capacity between 3am and 7am on Monday, pushing electricity prices below zero.
Swedish energy company Tibber told Dagens Nyheter that favourable wind conditions brought electricity prices into negative territory. The same phenomenon occurred in Finland, according to Nordic power exchange Nord Pool.
Antti Paananen, head of markets with the Finnish Energy Authority, said this was the first time this year that electricity prices dipped below zero.
"Last year, prices were negative on three occasions, and last February was the first time in history that Finland saw negative electricity prices," he said.
Little direct benefit
Consumers whose power agreements are directly tied to the power exchange will benefit the most from the negative price dip. However, savings are likely to be minimal as electricity distribution prices still apply.
Negative electricity prices are more common in Denmark and Germany, which have more wind power capacity than Finland.
Paananen told Yle current technology does not enable the storage of electricity.
"Right now production and consumption have to be in constant balance. Solutions for storing electricity on a large scale don’t exist at the moment, but the technology is constantly evolving," he explained.
In 2020, electricity prices in Finland dipped below zero for a total of nine hours over three days.