The Ministry of Employment and the Economy is following with concern the steady increase in the share of electricity imported from abroad for consumption in Finland.
“Electricity has been imported quite a lot recently and imports have increased,” says Esa Härmälä, head of the Ministry’s energy department. “A fifth of kilowatt hours are now imported.”
Electricity is imported because domestic consumption exceeds production in Finland. The Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor was originally due to be adding power to the Finnish grid in 2009, but its construction had been plagued by delays and it’s still a work in progress.
“Olkiluoto should be rushed. Of course it has to be safe and ready, but it’s already needed on the electricity market now,” Härmälä says.
Another reason for imported energy is that electricity from Norway and Sweden has a more attractive price tag than the homegrown variety.
“We need to ensure that there’s enough self-sufficiency in the event that these transference links (from abroad) are not always available,” Härmälä states.
Growth in sustainable habits or an explosion in usage?
The background to the present outcrop of furrowed brows is a Ministry assessment that electricity consumption in seven years’ time is expected to be over 10 percent higher than at present. That would entail a level of consumption that smashes 2007’s record for high usage.
Yet not everyone subscribes to the Ministry’s estimates.
Deputy Chair of the Green Party’s parliamentary group Oras Tynkkynen says the projections are based on old models that pertain to entirely unsustainable patterns of usage. Furthermore, the Green MP is firmly on the side of those unlikely to lament delays to any project related to the production of nuclear power.
“Quite large quantities of renewably produced energy are flowing into Finland and other Nordic markets,” states Tynkkynen. “It follows that we don’t have anything to worry about, despite the failure of one of these nuclear power initiatives.”
