A Finnish agency has announced that in the case of serious power shortages this winter, it may be forced to shut down 40 per cent of the country’s road lights, but insists shutdowns will not affect road safety.
The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency has stated that may reduce lightening along the country’s roads in the event of a possible power shortage as electricity may need to be rationed over this winter.
Around 40 per cent of the lighting along Finland’s roads could be shut off but indicated it would be done in a way not to have any effect on road safety, keeping lights at intersections and other busy areas on, broadcaster Yle reports.
“Computationally, it can be described in such a way that the electrical power requirement of road lighting on highways is about 43 megawatts. If half of it is turned off, it would cover about five per cent of a possible 400-megawatt power deficit in Finland’s electricity production,” Virpi Anttila, Director of the Transport Infrastructure Management Division, said.
Currently, around 95 per cent of Finland’s passenger trains also run on electricity and could be replaced with diesel trains as the country prepares for possible electricity shortages and outages in both rail and water transport.
Earlier this year in May, Russian energy company RAO Nordic cut off Finland completely from Russian electricity supplies, which at the time accounted for ten per cent of Finland’s electricity.
Reima Päivinen, the director of operations at Finland’s majority state-owned national electricity transmission grid operator Fingrid, claimed at the time that the lack of supplies from Russia would not greatly affect Finland’s electricity needs, however.
In October, Finland’s new Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor was running at full power after over a decade of delays with many hoping the reactor, the most powerful in Europe, will ease electricity costs and supply the country with enough power as it comes fully operational in December.
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