Generation of electricity has long been based on hydroelectric power in Lapland, which is partially making over 90 % of all produced energy sources renewable in Lapland. Base load for electricity supply is produced by Hydroelectric power at 1280 MWe and heat plant co-generation electricity power at 260 MWe. Hydroelectric power is good for variable load supply too and heat co-generation is good for base load supply or reserve load supply. Heat co-generation uses mostly renewable bio fuel sources, such as forest industry sludge and wooden chips. But fossil fuel sources such as peat and oil are in use.
Renewable carbon neutral methods of electricity generation such as wind and solar power are variable load supplies depended on weather and time of the year and day. Being variable load supply, known is installed site capacity in which production maxes out in perfect conditions while variation starts from zero. Total installed wind farm capacity in Lapland was 389 MWe by year 2020 and installed capacity of photovoltaics small production in Lapland was 3.7 MWe by year 2019. The transmission of electricity to Lapland consist of power transmission lines from Sweden, Norway and southern Finland. Electricity import capacity transmission line from Sweden is 1500 MWe and export to Sweden is 1100 MWe. While export and import capacity to Norway is 100 MWe. Finnish north-to-south transmission line capacity to Lapland is 2800 MWe for imports and 3200 MWe for exports.
Total installed electricity capacity for Lapland is 1934 MWe, where production from solar is just 0.3%. There are only few new plans to increase electricity generation from heat co-generation or hydropower in Lapland. Growth in Lapland’s electricity production capacity will mostly come from wind farm projects, which have 151 MWe in building stage and 1450 MWe planned.
While electricity from photovoltaics is minuscule from total production capacity the growth rate has been fast in last few years, which is explained partly due to available subsidies and reduced prices of photovoltaics system parts. Electricity transmission company data from Lapland collected by Energy authority shows, that rated power of solar small production has been on tenfold increase from 2016 to 2020.
