HVDC links connecting Finland to Sweden and Estonia among the most reliable in the Nordic countries

The HVDC links connecting the Finnish grid to Sweden and Estonia were among the very best in the Nordic countries in terms of technical availability in 2019. The connections ensure the security of transmission to consumption in Finland.

Statistics on Nordic and Baltic links for 2019 have been published on Fingrid's website. The statistics provide information on the transmission, availability and outages of direct current connections between different countries.

Connections in efficient use

The electricity market utilised the most FI-SE3 connection between Finland and Sweden, 81% of the total capacity i.e. 8.5 TWh. The transmission was almost entirely import to Finland.

The utilisation rate of the Fenno-Skan 1 link was by far the highest of the HVDC connections, as high as 95% of the technical capacity. The utilisation rate of the Fenno-Skan 2 link was 74%.

Concerning technical capacity between Finland and Estonia, the utilisation rate of the EstLink 1 connection in 2019 was 22% and 60% for the EstLink 2 connection. The transmission was mainly export to Estonia.

However, it is worth to note that the EstLink 1 connection is regularly used to support the frequency of the Nordic power system. Fingrid purchases part of the frequency containment reserves from Estonian HVDC links. In addition, EstLink 1 converter stations are utilised as part of the voltage regulation and reactive power management of the Finnish and Estonian main grids. This activity will help the electricity transmission of both countries to operate as securely as possible.

In 2019, the technical capacity of Finnish links was out of service due to disturbances and maintenance work on average only 1.8% of the hours throughout the year, i.e. for about 160 hours.

In the Nordic and Baltic countries, three of Fingrid's HVDC connections were among the five best HVDC connections in terms of technical usability: Fenno-Skan 1, Fenno-Skan 2 and EstLink 1.

For more information, see the appendix.

Contacts
Markku Piironen, Operational Development, Fingrid Oyj
tel. + 358 30 395 4172
firstname.lastname(at)fingrid.fi