Finland Times

 

The total energy consumption in the country fell  by 2 percent in the year 2012 compared to the previous year, according to the Statistics Finland.

The preliminary data of the Statistics Finland the total power consumption was about 1,367 PJ (petajoule), or 380 TW (terawatt hours) in the last year.

Consumption of energy decreased in transport and manufacturing, but the use of heating energy of buildings increased by more than six percent.

The report also said that the net imports of electricity to Finland went up by nearly 26 per cent and the Carbon dioxide emissions from the production and use of energy diminished by close on eight percent due to use of six percent less fossil fuels and 22 percent less peat.

The use of principally renewable energy went up by five percent, since the energy produced with fossil fuels and peat was replaced more with imported electricity as well as with wood and domestic hydro power.

 According to the preliminary data for 2012, renewable energy accounted for 30 per cent of total energy consumption.

Among individual energy sources, the largest reduction of 22 percent was seen in the consumption of peat (19 PJ), while the second largest reduction of over 11 percent was recorded in the consumption of coal (17 PJ). 

The shortage of peat was partly replaced with wood and with coal as well. The consumption of natural gas was diminished by over 11 per cent (14 PJ). Net imports of electricity grew by 13 PJ, or by some 26 percent, and consumption of nuclear energy by 2 PJ, or by around one per cent.

 Nearly one-quarter of Finland's total energy consumption was covered with wood fuels, which is almost as large as consumption of oil. 

The use of wood fuels grew by one percent as the growth in the use of wood fuels was partly due to its increased use in heating instead of peat.

The report, however, said that the final consumption of energy went up by one percent. The share of manufacturing in final energy consumption was 46 percent, which was one percent lower in 2012 than the year 2011.

Over 20 percent of the electricity consumed in Finland was covered with imported electricity. Imports of electricity from the Nordic markets grew over seven-fold, being larger than imports of electricity from Russia. 

Imports of electricity from Russia decreased by 60 percent. Domestic production of electricity went down by nearly four percent. The production of condensate power decreased by 42 percent, partly due to improved supply of hydro power in Sweden and Norway.

 Combined heat and power production diminished by almost 11 percent. Combined heat and power production decreased by seven percent in industry's combined power plants and by close on 11 per cent in district heating plants. 

The production of electricity by hydro power in Finland decreased by 35 percent from one year earlier.

Diverse energy products were imported into Finland to the value of EUR 13.4 billion in 2012, which was one per cent less than in 2011.

Correspondingly, energy products were exported from Finland to the value of EUR 6.3 billion, which was 13 percent higher than one year before.

The growth in Finland's energy products was due to livelier exporting of medium distillates and heavy fuel oil. In December, stocks of coal amounted to some 27 TWh, which was over 14 percent lower than one year earlier. Stocks of peat amounted to around 7.4 TWh in December, or some 35 percent down on the year before.