Christmas is a time when there is again a reason to get together with family and loved ones to rest and enjoy each other’s company. Home decorating, gifts and feasts go hand-in-hand with the holidays, but unfortunately it comes with a lot of waste that is harmful to the environment.
Last week’s electricity prices stayed at the same level as the previous week, rising just enough to reach the third most expensive position on the all-time list, after two record weeks last August. This week’s warmer weather and the end of nuclear plant repairs in Sweden will bring down electricity prices.
The arrival of the cold wave in Europe will test the mitigation measures for the energy crisis, accelerating the depletion of gas reserves. The situation in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries is complicated by the maintenance of three powerful nuclear reactors, which is why reserve power plants running on fuel oil were launched in Sweden today.
Electricity prices rose by an average of €90 per megawatt-hour in our price zone last week, primarily affected by colder and drier weather with quite low wind power output. Most of the attention was on the price ceiling for Russian oil and the sanctions that have started to work, but the markets are still in a wait-and-see position.
The energy crisis and its possible solutions fuel passions and provide plenty of talk, but the impact of various mitigation measures on the electricity market is difficult to predict. Both gas and electricity prices continued to rise in sub-zero temperatures, and for the first time this winter, countries had to use their gas reserves. Despite the fact, they are rather optimistic about the coming months.
The cooler weather that arrived last week increased electricity consumption in Estonia and neighbouring countries, and thus the market prices. Good news was announced by NordPool – a second auction round to the electricity exchange will be added in December with the aim of preventing extreme price peaks in the future, similar to the ones we saw in August.
Windy weather helped to lower electricity prices last week, the exchange rate fell close to zero at times, but the increased wind output did not fully get to impact our prices due to maintenance work on the Swedish-Lithuanian submarine cable. Recent weather forecasts promise a milder-than-average winter, however, the threat of power outages in Europe has not disappeared.
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