In July, the Maintenance of EstLink 2 Restricted the Thus Far Positive Impact of the Nordic countries on the Estonian Electricity Prices

Last month, the exchange price of electricity increased by 23.35 per cent to 44.17 euros per megawatt-hour in the NSP Estonian price area, as the maintenance of EstLink 2 restricted the impact of the cheaper Nordic energy on the local electricity price.

Compared to June, the NPS system price increased by 13.22 per cent reaching the price of 28.52 euros per megawatt-hour, whereas the price increased by only 3.9 per cent to 36.81 euros in Finland.

Despite the maintenance of EstLink 2, Estonian electricity price matched the Finnish price on 75 per cent of hours, while on only 36.7 per cent of hours with Latvia, and last month, the price difference with Latvia was 13.17 euros.

Due to the relatively high share of renewable energy and low level of consumption, electricity prices have been quite low in the Nordic countries this year. Through the Estonian-Finnish connections, the effects of this have also reached Estonia and the other Baltics. While during the first half of last year the electricity price in Estonia was 2.44 euros higher than in Finland, this year, the price difference during the first part of the year was only 0.41 euros.

During July, power was transferred from Finland to Estonia during 696 hours and from Estonia to Finland during 48 hours. Connection capacity was used fully during 185 hours from Finland to Estonia and within one hour from Estonia to Finland. 
Prices of the carbon dioxide emission quotas increased in July, remaining between 5.54 and 6.19 euros per tonne. The average monthly price of the natural gas imported to Estonia was 30.93 euros per megawatt-hour in July.

During the limited PTR auction in June, the price of PTRs reached 15.37 euros, and as the actual price difference in NPS in the Estonian and Latvian price areas was 13.17 euros in July, the owners of PTRs paid close to 246,000 euros to transmission system operators.

Based on the transactions made in the Nasdaq OMX Commodities market, the electricity price may reach 43.83 euros per megawatt-hour in the NPS Estonian price area in September and 43.65 euros per megawatt-hour in the fourth quarter.

The full market overview for July is available here (in Estonian).