One might think that sunny Spain or windy coastal countries like Denmark would have the cheapest electricity in the EU, but so far, only one country's electricity prices are below those of emission-intensive gas: Finland. What's more, 95% of its electricity comes from low-carbon sources, with nuclear, wind, hydro, and biomass playing the biggest role.

In the North-European country, the cheapest sources are wind, followed by hydro power, and then nuclear. They make up more than three quartes of the electricity supply. There is also a unique situation with the world third largest nuclear reactor OL3²³.

With the reactor coming online in 2023 and Finland's rapid growth of wind energy,  electricity supply drastically changed Finland went from a country that imported 15% of its power to a country with increasing times of oversupply. This results in record highs of negative-prized hours at the Day-Ahead market. Along with hours when prices are €0/MWh, Finland had over 800 such hours in 2024. The following diagram shows the number of negative hours from 2021 on  and expectations for 2025 based on the 2024 trend.

Wind power development is also increasing, so an even more volatile market with more negative-priced hours can be expected in the future. This combination of low prices and high volatility makes Finland ideal for further reducing OPEX for electrification.

Large OPEX reduction with Kraftblock storage

The Day-Ahead market averaged €46/MWh. Using Kraftblock’s storage logic in the finish market for a 20 MW process running 24/7, we calculated OPEX at half this amount. Depending on the size of the storage and the charging capacity of the resistive heater in Kraftblock’s Net-Zero Heat System, wholesale electricity prices between €23/MWh and €27/MWh can be achieved, which reduces OPEX significantly. The typical gas market price from the trade exchange ranged from €38 to €48/MWh.

Whether it's paper, chemicals, or high-temperature processes in the mining sector: For Finnish industries, this is a clear indication that they can significantly reduce costs by electrifying their processes with Kraftblock. For some years, the transition from fossil fuels to clean electricity might not be as rewarding elsewhere.

The OL3 nuclear power plant

Finland is in a unique position: Fifteen percent of the country's electricity comes from the OL3 plant, the third-largest nuclear reactor in the world, with a capacity of 1.6 GW.² There are multiple reasons why electricity from this plant is so cheap. One reason is the oversupply in the Finnish market. Nuclear power plants probably do not sell at near their actual production costs, and short payback times are questionable. Because they have limited flexibility, they cannot easily shut down. OL3 was planned to go online 13 years ago; meanwhile, wind energy started to take off in Finland.

However, there are more reasons in the case of OL3. It has a unique ownership structure and was built by a consortium (TVO). Much of the power goes directly to the industries that partially own it. Due to the unique ownership structure, the investments are on the companies' balance sheets, and the companies receive power at cost price. Therefore, the share available for the free market might be very low.

Additionally, Areva, the company that built OL3, had to cover the majority of the project's losses, €5.5 billion. Today, Areva is Framatom, which is part of EDF. OL3 was estimated to cost €3 billion, but ultimately cost at least €11 billion.³

‍Sources:

1) Statistics Finland (2025):Altogether 95 per cent of Finland's electricity production was based on fossil-free energy in 2024. Online: https://stat.fi/en/publication/cm1kktw8ualm207vwnzpsmpc8 

2) TVO.fi: OL3. Online: https://www.tvo.fi/en/index/production/plantunits/ol3.html#:~:text=The%20Olkiluoto%203%20(OL3)%20plant,of%20nuclear%20power%20is%20managed. 

3) Schneider, Mycle & Froggatt, Antony (2019): The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2019. Online: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/wnisr2019-v2-hr.pdf 

4) Entso-e: Transparency Platform: https://transparency.entsoe.eu/ 

5) GET Baltic: Baltig-Finish Gas Spot Index. Online: https://www.getbaltic.com/en/market-data/trading-data/