Proposal on priority procedure for electricity network connections circulated for review

A draft proposal to amend the Electricity Market Act has been circulated for comments until 9 October 2026. The draft proposal aims to ensure the appropriate and efficient use of the electricity network capacity between competing needs in situations of scarce capacity.

The demand for electricity network connections has increased significantly as a result of electrification, growing renewable energy generation, new types of electricity consumption and increased electricity storage capacity. Occasionally, electricity networks have become congested despite their ongoing development.

The Electricity Market Act would be amended to include provisions on a priority procedure that the network operator would be required to apply when processing requests by customers to connect electricity consumption sites and electricity storages to the network. The connection requests would be placed in four priority groups based on the capacity and purpose of the connection. The priority procedure would not apply to electricity production.

The procedure would encourage customers to locate sites of high electricity consumption and electricity storages in less congested areas. In congested areas, customers with high electricity consumption sites could improve the position of their connection request by committing to provide flexible generation capacity independent of weather conditions. They could also cover part of their electricity consumption with new production in the same area. The network operator would still need to consider the development rate of the consumption site or electricity storage in the processing of connection requests.

The order of priority and the priority group would determine the order in which the network operator in question, either the transmission system operator Fingrid or the local distribution system operator, would provide network capacity and develop its network when capacity cannot be provided to all customers at the same time.