Lagtingsledamöterna Annette Holmberg-Jansson (MSÅ) och Benny Pettersson (Lib) deltog fredagen den 17 maj i en konferens om ”Framtida utmaningar för energimarknaden i de Baltiska staterna” som hölls i Vilnius, Litauen. Ledamöterna var speciellt inbjudna till konferensen, Annette Holmberg-Jansson företrädde som medlem i Nordiska rådet dess presidium och Benny Pettersson deltog i egenskap av åländsk medlem i den energiarbetsgrupp som verkar inom ramen för den Parlamentariska Östersjökonferensen (BSPC).
Annette Holmberg-Janssons anförande återges här i sin helhet:

On behalf of the Nordic Council I am delighted to respond to Your invitation to attend this conference.
The Baltic Assembly and the Nordic Council has since many years been developing an increased mutual cooperation in many fields, among them in the field of Energy.
A good example of this is the Joint Baltic- Nordic Energy research Programme, starting in 2018 and now into its second period covering 2024-2027. The programme is administered by The Nordic Energy Research in Oslo with co-funding from Lithuania during this second period.

The Nordic Vision for 2030 has three strategic goals;

• A Green Nordic region
• A Competitive Nordic Region, and
• A socially Sustainable Nordic Region

It is fairly straightforward to state, that solutions for energy play a major role if we are to realise the goals of the vision.
The Global energy market, the Baltic and Nordic market included, face a trilemma regarding

• security,
• affordability and
• sustainability.

These elements are interrelated with each other, and they also have trade-offs between each other, so that more of one element could result in less of another element. In the Nordics we have been working with the sustainability, the Green Nordic, for many years already. During this early transition to a sustainable energy-consumption we could also rely on an affordable, and in front of all stable, price level on energy, especially on electrical energy.
After the pandemic and the outbreak of the war in the Ukraine, the prices for electrical energy on the Nord Pool-market site have been more volatile than before. This also affected the retail prices for the consumers drastically during 2022. Consumers with hourly market-price contracts suddenly found their electrical bills landing on levels they never had seen before. The monthly cost could be achieved in only a couple of days at worst.

This has led to a new term in the field of Social welfare, namely “Energy Poverty”. This means that an increased number of households have descended below the poverty line and thus increase the pressure on the welfare systems. As a former minister of social affairs this worries me.
To tackle the downside of a volatile energy market the household consumer will have to change their consumption behaviour, which has proven not to be as easy as it is said. My view is therefore that we have to create stable pricing systems for the small consumers, it is not fair to ask that a micro consumer should be able to understand the market for electric energy and be able to make rational decisions based on that information.

Finally I would like say some words about the establishment of seabased windpower in the Baltic Sea.

The Åland Islands, where I live, was among the pioneers in the establishment of the first landbased windmill in 1992 followed by more landbased mills on different spots on the main island during the following years. The following technical leap was a semi-offshore windpark on some small skerries on the edge of the Baltic Sea some fifteen years ago.

Currently we are producing an equal to 70 % of the islands consumption of electricity from wind. The problem with wind- and sunpower is that it is not always producing electricity when you need it, and in our case we get too much sometimes. This means that we are also exporting electrical energy to Sweden on a regular basis. Now we are planning a site for seabased windpower in the Botnian Sea to the north of Åland.
The windfarm area is called Sunnanvind (Southerly Wind). Fully developed it may have a potential effect of up to 4 gigawatt. As a comparison, 4 gigawatt is also the approximate number of already installed sea-based windpower in the South Baltic Sea, mainly in Danish and German waters.
The estimated yearly production from this park could amount to about 20 tera-watt-hours, which roughly equals 30 percent of the present production of electrical power in Finland – or almost 65 times the current consumption of electricity on Åland.

These are huge numbers, and the project is a large undertaking for a small administration as the Åland government. Besides the direct revenues from area leases and property tax, the Government has great expectations in regard to the establishment of different kinds of businesses in connection to the windfarms. The aim of the Government is to have the first auction for a part of the planned park during next year. Besides the Åland-areas, there are a number of windpark areas under planning along the coasts of the Bothnian Sea on both the Finnish and Swedish sides.

The real challenge is the transmission of the electrical power generated. In Scandinavia we already have bottle-necks in the transmission lines, the electrical energy is produced on another place than it is consumed. This is also of course a restraint for the seabased windpower production.
Mr/Ms Chairman, as we have seen here today, this is an area in which we will have continuous discussions for many years ahead, and I am sure that the Baltic-Nordic cooperation will increase even further over time.

Ledamot Annette Holmberg-Jansson, tel. 0457 313 4429, annette.holmberg-jansson@lagtinget.ax
Ledamot Benny Pettersson, tel. 040 516 5467, benny.pettersson@lagtinget.ax
Delegationssekreterare Sten Eriksson, tel. 0457 344 5640, sten.eriksson@lagtinget.ax