January’s Estonian and Finnish electricity exchange prices coincide 97 per cent of the time

Electricity exchange prices during January in the Estonian and Finnish price areas were equal for almost 97 per cent of the entire month. The average price for the first month of the year was 37.63 euros in Estonia, or 20 cents lower than the average price in Finland.

The electricity price rose by 40.8 per cent in Estonia and 42.4 per cent in Finland in comparison with December’s lower price. The system price on the Nord Pool Nordic electricity exchange amounted to 29.85 euros in January, which was 58.4 per cent higher than in December.

In the Latvian and Lithuanian price areas, the average electricity exchange price in January reached 50.01 euros and 50.32 euros respectively. The average price difference between the Estonian and Latvian price areas was 12.38 euros per megawatt-hour.

Power flows in January were in the direction from Finland to Estonia for 80 per cent of the time, using 44 per cent of the transmission capacity provided for the market. The Estonia-Latvia connection saw flows from Estonia to Latvia for 97 per cent of the time, with 89 per cent of the transmission capacity available for the market being used.

In contrast, carbon dioxide emission quota prices, which influence the price of electricity, fell in comparison with December. The average price in January was 6.81 euros per ton, almost 18 per cent lower than in December.

On the basis of transactions on the Nasdaq OMX Commodities market conducted on the last trading day of January, the average electricity price in the NPS Estonia price area will be 36.83 euros in February, and the price for the first quarter of 2016 will be 31.94 euros per megawatt-hour.

Revenues from the transmission capacity of the Estonia-Finland connections in December totalled 203 000 euros, and on the Estonia-Latvia connections, these totalled 2.9 million euros. The yearly, quarterly and monthly product auction prices for risk hedging instruments or PTRs-limited sold to market participants were significantly lower than the actual price difference between the Estonian and Latvian price areas. As a result, market participants who bought PTRs-limited earned over 3 million euros in total in January. Elering’s profit for cross-border capacity distribution for the previous month was 1.6 million euros in total.