Adequacy of power capacity during winter peaks in Finland

Abstract

Due to ambitious national and EU level climate targets, wind power capacity in Finland has grown rapidly, while a significant amount of thermal capacity has been decommissioned or mothballed. Moreover, Finland is growing more dependent on electricity imports and the current electricity prices do not encourage market-based investments in power capacity. Hence, the issue of power capacity adequacy during winter peaks has been present in the political discourse in Finland, especially since the record-high demand peak in January 7th 2016. We analyse the Finnish power system by simulating different stress factors and their combinations, e.g. faults in the largest power plants and transmission lines, in a period such as January 7th 2016 using EnergyPLAN simulation tool. The results show that, despite the record-high demand, the Finnish power system currently has both technical capacity and adequate measures of intervention to cope with severe stress factors in the simulated period.