The main Russian electricity company, Inter RAO, has suspended electricity supply for Finland from this Saturday due to a non-payment problem of the electricity already transferred. The operator of the Finnish electricity network, Fingrid Oyj, already reported on Friday that the Finnish subsidiary of Inter RAO, RAO Nordic, would suspend the delivery of electricity at 01:00 on Saturday morning.
“RAO Nordic cannot make payments for electricity imported from Russia. Therefore, we are forced to suspend the import of electricity from May 14”, assures the company it’s a statement. At the moment, it has not been indicated when the supply will resume, but the company hopes that the situation improves soon and electricity trade with Russia can be resumed.”
RAO Nordic imports electricity from Russia to Finland and then sells it to the Nord Pool exchange. The company assures in the statement that the volumes sold on the Nord Pool stock market since May 6 have not yet been paidan exceptional situation that “occurs for the first time in more than twenty years of our commercial history”.
RAO Nordic has ensured that Sweden will compensate for the lack of imports of electricity from Russia and will increase its own generation in Finland. “Finland’s self-sufficiency in electricity generation is constantly improving”, according to Fingrid Oyj, who mentions in particular the increase in wind generation that “increases every year”. “This year alone, it is expected to generate 2,000 more megawatts of wind power” and it hopes to achieve electrical self-sufficiency in 2023,” Fingrid has riveted.
Finland will decide this Sunday its candidacy for NATO
In the meantime, This Sunday Finland is expected to formalize its candidacy for admission to NATO at a press conference at 1:00 p.m., before a decisive meeting of the ruling party in Sweden in view of a probable request for joint accession of the two Scandinavian countries. “We wait be able to send our applications this weekalong with Sweden. They have their own process, but I hope we make decisions at the same time,” Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Saturday.
Finland’s decision to join NATO has been described as “error” by the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, after this Saturday the Finnish head of state, Sauli Niinistö, called Putin to inform him of the decision made, in a “direct and blunt” conversation. Putin replied that joining NATO “would be a mistake, as there is no security threat” from Finlandnoted the Kremlin.
According to the latest polls, more than 75% of Finns want to join the alliance military, triple that before the war in Ukraine. In Sweden, support also rose, but to around 50% against 20% opponents.