Electricity bills based on daily prices will be affected immediately, while those based on time-based prices will be affected later.
Citizens who have been plagued by high electricity bills are now hoping for relief as Olkiluoto 3, long awaited for two decades, is finally up and running.
Construction, which started in 2005, was originally scheduled to be completed in just over four years.
The problems started with the poor quality of concrete construction, and the years of ditching will go down in the annals of construction history.
He believes that in the future, fixed-term electricity contracts will also be signed at clearly lower prices than what was offered to citizens last winter.
Although Olkiluoto 3 produces almost 30 percent of Finland’s electricity consumption with its 1,600 megawatt power, today, for example, Finland has been a net importer of electricity.
– We still need foreign electricity for consumption peaks and sometimes we also export what is produced here to other parts of Europe, Haikarainen reminds.
Avoiding the horrors of winter
Last fall, the horror pictures of recurring power cuts painted for citizens did not come true.
The reason was the mild winter and Finns’ enthusiasm for saving electricity.
– Windy January and the ten percent reduction in electricity consumption made by the citizens on their own saved us from the worst, says Haikarainen.
Lahti Energia has also been a small shareholder in Teollisuuden Voima’s Olkiluoto nuclear power plants since the early 2000s.
– That’s when we got involved in the development of emission-free electricity production and first acquired ownership from the old Olkiluoto 1 and Olkiluoto 2 units, and later it was decided to also participate in this Olkiluoto 3 project.
– Now this will be continued, for example, by investing in new wind farms, Haikarainen says.
Regarding nuclear power plants, the energy market’s eyes have turned to smaller units.
– In many ways, it is better to make smaller 300-600 megawatt power plants. For example, possible production disruptions in units the size of Olkiluoto 3 will also cause major disruptions in the electricity market, Haikarainen says.