Fingrid will launch EIA procedure for the construction of reserve power capacity

Six locations studied preliminarily. Fingrid, the transmission system operator in Finland, is making preparations for increasing the volume of fast disturbance reserve by 100 to 400 megawatts in the coming years. In practice, this will mean the construction of one or more reserve power plants. It will also be studied whether the present production capacity in Finland has plant units applicable to reserve power operation, and whether there are industrial loads which can be shed and which can hence reduce the need to construct new reserve power capacity. The project will be launched in the later summer by environmental impact assessments in six locations.One of Fingrid’s foremost tasks is to secure the system security of the Finnish power system. In order to do this, Fingrid maintains power reserves by signing contracts with industries and power plants. Fingrid also owns gas turbine plants suitable for reserve power production.

The fast disturbance reserves secure the functioning of the power system for example in the event of disturbances in power plants, and they are used for restoring the power system to a normal state as soon as possible. The reserve power plants are not used for commercial electricity production, but they are only started in disturbance situations of the power system.

The need for disturbance reserve which can be started quickly will increase in the future as a result of the new large nuclear power unit in Finland. This is why Fingrid is making preparations for constructing additional reserve power capacity and utilising existing capacity through usage right contracts and by signing new contracts on loads which can be shed.

The EIA procedure launched will survey possibilities to construct new reserve power capacity as a few units with a total electric power of approx. 100 megawatts. The units can be implemented either by locating new gas turbine or diesel generator aggregates in existing reserve power plants or by constructing new corresponding plants.

The preliminary locations studied in the EIA procedure are in Joroinen, Seinäjoki, Inkoo, Forssa, Kangasala and Jyväskylä. The starting point in planning is that a reserve power plant is used for less than 500 hours per year. The operation of a plant consists of trial operation lasting about one hour regularly each month and of actual need for disturbance reserve occurring randomly. The construction of the power plants is estimated to be scheduled for 2013 to 2020. Further information:
Power System Operation/Reima Päivinen, Senior Vice President, tel. +358 (0)30 395 5160, +358 (0)40 556 2662