His calculation was based on two variables: the average market price in the second half of last year – more than 20 cents per kilowatt hour – and energy consumption during the same period. It does not include heavy industry, as they tend to use various mechanisms to protect themselves from fluctuations in electricity prices.
“An odd calculation that has very little to do with practice” hit Pekka SalomaaCEO of Suomen Energia.
Salomaa reminded the Finnish public broadcasting company that part of the electricity was sold at protective prices, as the companies that distribute electricity secure future deliveries through the futures market and households effectively confirm their prices by entering into fixed-term electricity contracts with distributors.
– A considerable part of consumers are at a different price level, he reasoned. “This is a preliminary estimate: it is closer to one billion than five billion. But what exactly it is is very difficult to say.”
Pertti JärventausProfessor of electrical engineering at the University of Tampere, said Lund and Salomaa are talking about two different things – the first about the absolute additional costs and the second about the profits recorded by electricity producers.
“The question is how much electricity users paid for the “electricity market machine”. The difference is how the euros are distributed in the machine between the producers and the operators who sold them [price] shields,” he recalled, adding that he believed five billion euros was a fairly accurate estimate of the absolute costs.
Statistics Finland’s data differ from Lund’s calculations, Salomaa reminded. Based on a study that examines the prices charged by electricity retailers over a certain period of time, the data shows that in the second half of last year, the average price was about 13 cents per kilowatt hour.
The figure would mean additional costs of around two billion euros in total.
It is still impossible to estimate the total costs of the energy crisis, YLE reminded. In the second half of last year, hundreds of thousands of households committed to pay prices for electricity that are significantly higher than the current market price in the coming years.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: The Nordic Page