🇫🇮 Fingrid will waive grid service fees and adjust the level of grid connection fees

Press release from Fingrid 

Fingrid plans to waive grid service fees for a total of six months in 2024, thus reducing its customers’ grid service fees by approximately EUR 250 million. The plan is a reaction to the exceptionally large amount of congestion income. The company has already decided to waive the grid service fees for January, February and June 2024. The decision to waive grid service fees for the remainder of the year will be made in the summer of 2024. The connection fees for new grid connections will be adjusted to reflect higher construction costs as of 1 January 2024.

Fingrid’s main grid investment programme will enable rapid growth in the production and consumption of renewable electricity and support the achievement of Finland’s climate targets 2035. Clean, affordable and reliable electricity is a key competitive advantage for Finland. As the power system expands and becomes increasingly complex, the costs of operating the system also increase. At the same time, fluctuations in the price of energy and large transmission volumes in the main grid increase uncertainty in Fingrid’s market-based cost items.

Due to exceptionally large area price differences in 2022, Fingrid accumulated a significant amount of congestion income. Congestion income accumulates for Fingrid from the Finland–Sweden and Finland–Estonia transmission connections. The use of congestion income is determined in EU regulations. Fingrid uses congestion income to finance investments that increase electricity cross-border transmission capacity and to cover operating costs and waives grid service fees for its customers. As for 2024, the decision has already been made to waive the grid service fees for January, February and June. The waiving of grid service fees for the remainder of 2024 will be confirmed in the summer of 2024. The presented plan will not affect the pricing of the company’s other services.

“Fingrid’s key objectives are to maintain the system security of the power system at a high level and to enable the growth of the power system based on renewable electricity. This also contributes to securing an affordable electricity transmission price. Fingrid prices its services based on costs. When variations in the company’s market-based costs increase, this is inevitably also reflected in customer pricing. In the future, it is possible that the size of grid service fees will be adjusted more frequently than once a year,” says Senior Vice President Jussi Jyrinsalo, who is responsible for grid planning at Fingrid.

Connection fees 1 January 2024

The grid connection fees will be updated as of 1 January 2024 to reflect the rise in substation connection construction costs in accordance with the principles for the grid connection fees. The connection fees will be raised on all voltage levels.

Originally published on 21 September.