April’s Average Electricity Price Again Below Price of Former Closed Market

According to the Nordic electricity exchange, Nord Pool Spot (NPS), the average electricity price in the Estonian price area in April was 30.50 euros per megawatt-hour, remaining for the second consecutive month lower than the closed market price that was in force until the end of 2012.

In April, the average electricity price in Estonia was 4.31 euros lower than in Latvia and 0.41 euros higher than in Finland. In the Latvian price area, the average price increased by eight per cent in a monthly calculation, reaching 34.81 euros per megawatt-hour. Unusually, Lithuanian and Latvian prices differed, with the price in Lithuania being 35.61 euros per megawatt-hour in April.

In Finland, the electricity price increased by 2.3 per cent to reach 30.09 euros per megawatt-hour. The NPS system price remained at 25.31 euros last month, the same level as in March. In Denmark, negative prices were seen once again last month, with the lowest price reaching as low as minus 13.42 euros per megawatt-hour.

In April, the Estonian day-ahead electricity price differed from the Latvian price for 52.6 per cent of the time. Estonian and Finnish prices differed for only 6.8 per cent of the hours.

During the month of April, power flows in the electricity day-ahead market between Finland and Estonia moved from Finland to Estonia for 715 hours and from Estonia to Finland for four hours. The total capacity of the connection from Finland to Estonia was maximally used for 47 hours. 89 per cent of the transmission capacity between Estonia and Latvia was used last month.

Carbon dioxide emission quota prices, which influence the price of electricity production, showed a small increase last month as compared to March, ranging between 6.80 and 7.28 euros per tonne.

According to the financial transactions on the Nasdaq OMX Commodities market, the average price for electricity in the NPS Estonian price area for May 2015 is expected to be 34.95 euros per megawatt-hour, and the average price of the third quarter may reach 35.70 euros per megawatt-hour.

Elering saw profits of approximately 330,700 euros in April through the sale of PTR-limited risk-hedging instruments to market participants.