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Nov 17, 2022·edited Nov 17, 2022

In FI zone at 0628 z, price €359.55 / MW. Respective temps Helsinki −1.3 °C, Oulu 0.1 °C, Jyväskylä −2.1 °C and Rovaniemi −11 °C. National grid load in FI zone 10409 MW, combined domestic production 7957 MW. So this is still warm weather at these latitudes. Some climate experts could explain phenomena generated by so called northern vortex. Or attenuation of that, more likely. Our top brass politicians said FI will be in better position in Europe due to the new 1.6 GW OL3 NPP running on full throttle. Unfortunately the whole secondary circuit, i.e. ALL FOUR (4) redundant feed water pumps failed almost simultaneously during the commissioning test runs in late October. And now we are in extremely dangerous energy position. World is based on energy, and the most important one today is the above mentioned diesel fuel. Current pricing has already squeezed the transportation sector but it won’t end here. At these relatively warm winter temps (at least here in FI) it has already caused some problems on construction sites as they need heating e.g. in concrete mixing. Almost every offer is based on assumption of solid energy supply. When offering some project they knew diesel fuel energy content is roughly 10 kWh/1 liter. But no one didn’t dare to calculate with the current prices. Regarding the diesel fuel run gensets in case of blackout, couple of rules of thumb, 1 liter of diesel fuel is roughly 4 kWh of electricity. And usually one can run < 100 kVA units 48 hours, as > 100 kVA units roughly 60 hours before the first mandatory maintenance, i.e. shutdown. That’s why those extremely dangerous rolling blackouts are more feasible way for grid operators avoiding total collapse than running diesel gensets on regularly. So in case of energy short supply every participant will cease its normal day to day operations. Remember Lebanon, one of the main Mediterranean area financial and banking hubs in the late 60’s and early 70’s. It finally managed to stabilize its energy supply (at least some of it) in the 90’s. But now Lebanese pound collapsed and they have severe blackouts. BR JKi

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