Finland is seeing relatively high spot electricity prices on Thursday, seeing a peak of 47.95 cents per kilowatthour (kWh) at 8 am.
During the day spot prices were not set to drop below 10 cents per kWh, while costs will be above 30 cents/kWh between 7 and 10 pm, according to Nordic electricity exchange Nord Pool.
Thursday's high electricity prices are being attributed to limited output at wind power facilities, as well as the shutdowns of two reactors (OL2 and OL3) at the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant due to maintenance work.
Earlier this week, the nuclear facility's operator TVO announced that annual maintenance on OL3 would be completed ahead of schedule.
OL3's yearly maintenance began on 1 March, with TVO saying that electricity production would resume by 28 April.
"The most extensive work has now been completed, and the next step involves carrying out a few final preparatory tasks to enable the restart of the plant and the resumption of electricity production," a TVO press release read.
Its older OL2 reactor was taken offline in mid-April due to a detection of increased moisture in the turbine island's generator. Last week, TVO said that after work on replacing a rotor with a spare part is complete, that OL2 would be operating at a diminished capacity until scheduled yearly maintenance work is due to start on 25 May.
"The rotor now being installed is a refurbished spare part that arrived in Olkiluoto in April and is the last available rotor in TVO's inventory. For this reason, the unit will continue to operate at a lower power level, based on conservative analyses to reduce the risk of failure," the company said in a press release last week.
Meanwhile, TVO said its OL1 reactor was producing electricity at normal levels.
