In these days of inflation it’s nice to read about the exact opposite, as well as the reason:
When Finland powered up its latest nuclear power plant in April wholesale power prices dropped 75%, almost overnight. The Olkiluoto 3 plant (above) is fully operational, generating 1,600 MW of electricity on demand (irrespective of the weather), and delivering 15% of the country’s power needs. Nuclear now provides around half of the country’s total electricity generation.
Specifically it caused a decline in the average spot wholesale electricity prices from €245.98 per MWh in December, 2023 to €60.55 per MWh hour by April, 2024. But those reductions will show up in the retail power market sooner than later.
There’s also the longer-term cost reduction of having a baseline power source that is predictable and constant, thus saving your power grid from threat of crashes, plus no brownouts, let alone blackouts and the cost of requiring a back-up power source – all of which are reasons why wind and solar power are proving to be more expensive than their “free” sources suggested. It’s the Iron
Which also means that the following is another piece of good news from the same article, this time from one of Finland’s neighbours:
More than 40 years after the country voted to phase out nuclear power, Sweden is now looking to build more nuclear reactors after its parliament formally abandoned its 100% renewable energy target to meet net-zero by 2045.
You have to wonder how many nations are going to start abandoning their Net Zero targets altogether when they realise that renewables won’t get them their, that carbon-absorbtion technologies won’t get them there, and they’re not willing to go nuclear.
No Minister 
But Mum! He isnt wearing any clothes at all!! The little boy exclaimed (and he knew he was a boy cause he had seen his willy and wasn’t having any of that gender fluid bs)
The crowd gasped in amazement as the scales of willful blindness on their eyes dropped away…
Then the laughter began…..
.. and the climate activist Emperor blushed bright red and ordered in the tanks! He/she/it/they (identity is fluid you know!, as far as the Emperor was concerned) wasn’t having any laughing at his expensively assembled and run clothing artifice!!
Just an observation….Specifically it caused a decline in the average spot wholesale electricity prices from €245.98 per MWh in December, 2023 to €60.55 per MWh hour by April, 2024. But those reductions will show up in the retail power market sooner than later.
December, middle of Winter high demand.April, heading in to spring, not such high demand.
Surely the correct comparison should be April 2023 prices verses April 2024 prices/demand.
But then the click bait headline might not apply?
You’re thinking in NZ terms where most home heating is electrical.
But that’s not the case in much of Europe and North America, where it’s often gas. So in the USA for example the peak period electricity consumption is actually the summer because AC units only work via electricity.
WRT Finland I don’t know the specifics but a lot of their homes are heated in the old Soviet style, via hot water produced from some central plant, like a power plant.
But sure, it’ll pay to check on the specific month of the year in future comparisons.
Fair comment.
But on the electricity front this might help
https://energia.fi/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/pikatilasto-april.pdf
Impressive I have to say.