The operator of the Finnish electricity network has assured that it can do without power imports from Russia, suspended from Saturday May 14 due to unpaid bills, when Finland is preparing to announce its candidacy for NATO.
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“
We were prepared for this and it won't be difficult.
We can manage with a little more imports from Sweden and Norway
,” Timo Kaukonen, an operations manager for operator Fingrid, told AFP on Friday.
“
A little less than 10%
” of the electricity consumed in Finland comes from Russia, with an import capacity of up to 900 megawatts (MW) currently, he explained.
Tensions between Moscow and Helsinki
Russia will suspend its electricity deliveries to Finland from Saturday due to unpaid bills, the supplier RAO Nordic Oy, 100% owned by the Russian company InterRAO, announced on Friday.
The latter claims that he has not received payment for electricity supplied to Finland since May 6, without saying whether these settlement problems are linked to European sanctions targeting Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.
A message to this effect appears on the site of Nordpool, the Nordic electricity market, with an interruption of electricity deliveries from midnight local (11:00 p.m. in France) on the night of Friday to Saturday.
This announcement comes against a backdrop of rising tensions between Moscow and Helsinki, which has announced its desire to join NATO "
without delay
" under the influence of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
An intention seen with a very bad eye by Moscow which has already threatened a “
military-technical
” response.
At the end of April, Fingrid had reduced import capacities from Russia from 1,300 to 900 MW in order to “
safeguard the security of the electrical system in Finland
” in a context
of “changes in the international situation
”.
