In January the Average Price of Electricity on the Power Exchange Remained Below 40 EUR/MWh

In January the average price of electricity in the Estonian price area of Nord Pool Spot (NPS), the Nordic power exchange, was just below 40 EUR/MWh, despite the severe cold weather in the second half of the month, which sharply increased demand for electricity.

The price in the Estonian price area in the first week of January was the same as in December at almost 33 EUR/MWh but prices rose from the second week of the month, mainly in response to the increased demand in all neighbouring countries as the weather turned much colder. Latvian and Lithuanian market participants bought a majority of the electricity as prices on the Lithuanian power exchange Baltpool were mostly higher. The prices in Estonia and Finland in the last weeks of the month were pushed up not only by these factors, but also by planned stoppages for maintenance of nuclear power plants in Finland and Sweden and of generating units in Estonia. The average price in NPS Estonia in January was 39.77 EUR/MWh, and in the Finland price area the price was 38.82 EUR/MWh.

In January sales in NPS Estonia fell by 35% to 348 GWh, which is where they were in the first months that the power exchange was open. The sharp fall in the amounts sold was caused by a rise in imports from Finland in the first half of the month as a consequence of the low price of electricity in the Nordic countries, and the amount of electricity sold by Estonian market participants in the NPS Estonia price area fell by 43%. The amount sold by Lithuanian market participants increased by 12%, while Latvian market participants sold the same amount as in December.

A total of 447 GWh of electricity were bought from the NPS Estonia price area in January, which represents a slight rise from December’s 427 GWh. There was a major increase of 40% in the amount bought by Lithuanians, while the amount bought by the Estonian market participants covered 32% of our domestic consumption.

More electricity was sold in the Estonian price area than was bought in December, but in January the amounts bought were much higher than the amounts sold and the difference was imported from Finland to Estonia through the EstLink 1 undersea cable. This meant that imports from Finland were four times higher than in December, rising from 32 GWh to 121 GWh.

The price of CO2 emission allowances started to rise from its low level at the end of last year, but it remained below 10 EUR/t in January. The rise in consumption caused by the cold weather at the end of January led emissions prices to rise too. 
The flow of electricity in the EstLink 1 cable was in the direction Finland-Estonia 74% of the time in January, and in the direction Estonia-Finland 26% of the time.

A more detailed summary in Estonian can be found here.