Russia has stopped supplying electricity to Finland because of "payment problems". Finnish power grid operator Fingrid announced on May 13 that RAO Nordic Oy, a Finland-based subsidiary of Inter RAO Group, one of Russia’s largest electricity enterprises, suspended power supply to Finland from 1:00 on May 14.
Fingrid said that Finland's power adequacy was not threatened. Recently, electricity imported from Russia accounts for about 10% of Finland's total electricity consumption. Reima Päivinen, senior vice president of power system operation of Fingrid, said it would import more power from Sweden and increase power generation in Finland to make up for the shortage of power imported from Russia.
The timing of the incident was rather delicate. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin issued a joint statement on the 12th, making it clear that Finland will apply to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Russia responded on the same day that Finland's accession to NATO posed a direct threat to Russia, which may consider countermeasures.
RAO Nordic Oy explained in the announcement that the company has been responsible for importing electricity from Russia to Finland for many years and selling it to Nord Pool, pan-European power exchange. "Unfortunately, we noticed that the transaction volume fees sold on the Nord Pool since May 6 have not been deposited into our bank account. This is an unusual situation that has occurred for the first time in over 20 years of trading history," the company added, "unfortunately, RAO Nordic is unable to pay for electricity imported from Russia in the current lack of cash income. Therefore, we were forced to suspend electricity imports from May 14. We hope the situation would be alleviated as soon as possible and resume electricity trade with Russia."
"Finland is about to become self-sufficient in electricity," Fingrid stressed on its increasing self-sufficiency rate, especially the wind power generation, “there are 2 GW of wind turbines are expected to be connected to the grid this year, and it is expected to be self-sufficient in electricity by 2023.”
Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust Plc also revealed its plan on investing €3.5 million ($3.8 million) to build a Finnish renewable energy development platform focusing on wind and solar energy.
The platform, Nordic Renewables Ltd, will initially seek to develop about 400 MW of wind and solar photovoltaic projects in Finland in the next three to five years. The new company will benefit from an exclusive joint development arrangement with the UK developer Nordic Generation Ltd, which operates mainly in Finland.
According to Finnish congressman, Finland has predicted that Russia may cut off the supply of natural gas in Finland on May 23, the date of the next payment of natural gas to Russia.
As Finland has clearly rejected Russia's request to pay natural gas in rouble, the Finnish government said on May 5 that it has been prepared to be "cut off" by Russia later this month.
