Finland: Scenarios for the impact of datacentres on electricity prices

Finland’s datacentre expansion would raise electricity prices materially because steady demand collides with wind power’s highly variable output, making flexible capacity and demand response more valuable than energy matching alone.

• The model assumes 2.5 GW of datacentre capacity running at 50% utilisation, or about 11 TWh of annual consumption, equivalent to 13% of Finland’s electricity use and broadly consistent with Fingrid’s 7–16 TWh estimate for 2030.
• In the most likely scenario, 2,460 MW of commercially viable new wind capacity lifts the average wholesale price from €48.4/MWh to €63.3/MWh, a 31% increase, adding €1.286bn a year to existing households’ and businesses’ wholesale electricity costs.
• The annual average understates the capacity problem: hours above €200/MWh rise from 187 today to 465 with commercially viable wind, while a two-hour battery reduces them only to 433.
• Flexible datacentre utilisation between 40% and 60% cuts the price increase to 24% and saves datacentres about €130m annually, whereas 1,250 MW of gas turbines cuts it to 23% and reduces hours above €200/MWh to 166.
• Imports cover much of the energy requirement but not the tightest periods: without new generation, net imports rise from 4.5 TWh to 12.6 TWh, while Sweden’s links are already typically full during cold, calm spells.

Takeaway: Investors should focus on balancing capacity, demand response and transmission rather than assuming that annual wind-energy matching will prevent price spikes; the analysis also warns that gas turbines may not be commercially viable despite their strong effect on scarcity hours.