As usual, the largest share of the electricity consumed in Lithuania – 63% – was imported. Compared to last June, the demand for electricity from Scandinavian countries grew, but not enough, therefore local producers in the Baltic countries had to make up for the missing portion.
"In Lithuania, compared to May, the electricity output of local power plants remained the same. Meanwhile, in neighbouring Latvia, production of hydro electricity fell 60% and they operated thermal power plants at a higher capacity to produce 2.2 times as much as before. Such structural changes in production and limited transmission from Estonia and Latvia were the reasons for the price rise," said Robertas Staniulis, head of the Market Development Section of Litgrid.
In the neighbouring Nordic countries lower prices dominated due to increased exports from hydro resources rich Norway. The average June price for electricity in the Nord Pool Spot Scandinavian bidding area fell by 35% compared to May, reaching 14.4 EUR/MWh.
In the Swedish SE4 bidding area, to which Lithuania will be connected via the NordBalt link, the average price in June was 20.1 EUR/MWh – which is about 5 EUR/MWh higher than in the rest of the country. The higher price in the Swedish SE4 bidding area was caused by reduced capacity between the SE3 and SE4 zones and by the export to Denmark and Germany.
Due to increased imports from Sweden, the power price fell by 17% in the Finnish bidding area to 21.5 EUR/MWh. In addition, Block 2 of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant came back into production after maintenance. There was a similar price fall (16%) in Estonia, where the price fell to 27.3 EUR/MWh. However, despite an increase of 150% in electricity imports from Finland, several disconnections of Estlink-1 as well as increased electricity export to Latvia prevented the price levelling between two countries.
On 7 June, the electricity from Finland had been sold to Russia for the first time. Using the 350 MW HVDC link, a total of 22 GWh of electrical energy was exported to Russia in June.
In Poland, a fall in the output of thermal electrical power plants caused the average price to fall slightly and it reached 38.3 EUR/MWh. Whereas in Germany, an increase of almost 25% in the output of thermal electrical power plants caused the average price of electricity to rise by 15% and it reached 29.4 EUR/MWh. The price rise was affected by relatively weak winds in June, and the wholesale electricity market haven't turned negative not even once. Furthermore, at the end of the month, the Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant was permanently decommissioned.
