Despite of the EstLink Power Cuts, the Estonian Power Exchange Price was Relatively Stable

Despite of the power cuts that took place in the direction Estonia-Finland in September, the Estonian power exchange prices were on par with the Finnish prices on close to 82% of all hours last month. At the same time, prices on the Estonian and Latvian power exchange coincided on only 35% of all hours.

In Estonia, the day-ahead power exchange price increased by 9.9% to 42.97 euros per megawatt-hour. In Latvia and Lithuania, the prices rose by 3.9%, reaching 57.49 euros. In Finland, the price was 38.33 euros, remaining on the same level as in August. The NPS system price, however, rose by 8.9%, the final price being 34.91 euros per megawatt-hour.

During September, power flows were in the direction from Finland to Estonia on 617 hours, and in the direction from Estonia to Finland on 7 hours. The interconnections were at maximum capacity in the Finnish-Estonian direction on 36 hours and maximum capacity was not reached in the Estonian-Finnish direction.

In September, the Estonian market participants bought 90% of the electric energy required to cover domestic consumption from the day-ahead and intra-day markets. Last month, 90% of the electricity produced in Estonia was also sold via the stock exchange.

The prices of carbon dioxide emission quotas that influence the electricity production prices remained on the same level in September as they had been in August, ranging from 5.65 to 6.39 euros per tonne. Elering estimates that the average monthly price of natural gas imported to Estonia was 32.24 euros per megawatt-hour in September. 
As a result of the PTR-Limited auction that took place in August, the September price of PTRs was 14.30 euros per megawatt-hour. Since the actual price difference between the Estonian and Latvian NPS price regions amounted to 14.53 euros, the market participants that had bought limited PTRs earned profits in the sum of 24,350 euros.

According to the transactions made on the Nasdaq OMX Commodities market, the price of electric energy in the Estonian price region may be 42.70 euros per megawatt-hour in October and 42.30 euros per megawatt-hour in Q4.

The full market report for September is available here.