HELSINKI: Total energy consumption in January to June 2016 amounted to 695 petajoule (PJ), which was four per cent more than in the corresponding period last year, according to Statistics Finland’s preliminary data.
Electricity consumption amounted to 44 terawatt hours (TWh), which is three per cent more than one year earlier. Carbon dioxide emissions of the energy sector rose by five per cent year-on-year. Colder weather than last year contributed to the rise in energy consumption. Among fuels, the consumption of wood fuels increased most in the first half of 2016, by five per cent. Oil and coal rose by four per cent and peat by three per cent. Compared with the first half of 2015, only the consumption of natural gas went down by five per cent, the data show. Net imports of electricity grew by 15 per cent in January to June compared with the corresponding period of last year.
Net imports of electricity have never before been as large in the first half of the year and their share of total consumption grew to 22 per cent. The growth in wind power levelled off to ten per cent after a couple of years of strong growth. The use of hydro power went up by three per cent and that of nuclear power by two per cent.
In the first half of 2016, diverse energy products were imported into Finland to the value of EUR 3.3 billion, which was 16 per cent less than one year earlier. Most energy products were imported from Russia, whose share of the value of imports was 61 per cent. Energy products were exported to the value of EUR 1.7 billion, which was six per cent more than one year previously. Most energy products were exported from Finland to EU countries, which accounted for 82 per cent of the value of exports.
The fallen world market price of oil contributed to the reduction in the value of imports of energy products. In turn, the maintenance shutdown of oil production in the second quarter of last year partly caused the slight rise in exports of energy products. Stocks of coal amounted to 17 TWh at the end of June, which was 30 per cent less than one year earlier. At the end of June, it was estimated that the peat stocks contained 16 TWh of energy peat, which was 22 per cent more than one year earlier.
