Living Long Enough to See It: Finland's Electricity Costs Can Be Negative

One morning I opened the electricity company's app to check the day's price curve and saw something that stopped me: at 3 PM, the price was negative.

I stared at it for a moment. A negative electricity price. Not zero. Negative.

In China, electricity pricing never required this kind of attention. The meter tracked usage, a bill arrived at month end, and I paid it without looking at what time of day I had run the washing machine. I had heard of peak and off-peak pricing, but in practice it didn't touch daily life.

Finland is different.

Here, electricity prices change by the hour

One morning I opened the electricity company's app and saw the price curve for the day. At 3 PM, the price was actually negative. I stared at it for a second because I thought I had misread the number.

The electricity price at 3 PM is -2.50 c/mWh, about -0.2 RMB per kWh

After that I started paying more attention. In Finland, if you have a spot price contract, electricity is settled by the hour. I remember checking the app once at 3 AM and seeing 2.88 c/kWh. Not long after, at 10 AM, it had climbed to 32.38 c/kWh. In seven hours, the difference was more than eleven times.

The electricity price difference between 3 AM and 10 AM is 11 times

In China, I never had to think twice about when to run the washing machine. Here, if you happen to hit an expensive hour, the same load can cost several times more. It feels a little like electricity has joined the stock market.

Negative prices do not mean free electricity

At first glance, negative electricity prices sound like the power company should be paying me. That is not quite how it works.

When the price drops below zero, it usually means supply is very high and demand is low - often because of strong wind or hydropower generation. In other words, the market is basically encouraging people to consume more.

But the bill is made up of more than just the hourly energy price:

• Energy charge: the hourly electricity price times consumption, and this part can go negative
• Transmission charge: paid to the local grid company, and it is always collected
• Monthly fixed fee: charged by the energy company or the grid company

So even when the electricity price goes negative, the final bill does not become negative. You just pay a little less. The first time I realized that, I was a bit disappointed.

I also checked the highest electricity prices in Helsinki. The record highs mostly came during the 2022 energy crisis and a few extreme events. At one point, some households with contract pricing were paying close to €0.49 per kWh, which is about 3.8 RMB per kWh. The same kilowatt-hour can be almost free one day and surprisingly expensive the next.

Why people care about the origin of electricity

One thing that surprised me even more was that electricity here also comes with an "origin."

The electricity company tells you how much of your electricity comes from fossil fuels, nuclear power, or renewables. If you care about the source, you can also pay a little extra to switch to 100% renewable electricity or carbon-free electricity, which usually means nuclear power.

My app shows the following options:

• Renewable upgrade: +0.39 c/kWh + €2.90/month
• Carbon-free upgrade: +0.29 c/kWh + €2.90/month

You can pay to upgrade to different types of energy

Back in China, nobody ever asked me whether I wanted wind power or nuclear power when I paid the bill. Here, that is an actual choice.

I also checked our household's default mix. Since we are on the basic package, most of it comes from fossil fuels and peat:

• 56% fossil fuels and peat
• 31% nuclear energy
• 13% renewable energy

Our household is on the default package, and the source ratio can also be checked

What our bills actually look like

Since the prices move around so much, I was curious what our actual bills looked like. I went back through them.

From January to September 2025, our total electricity bill came to €221.99, or about €24.70 per month. January was €21.26, February was €31.96, and the cheapest months were in summer: June was €12.08, July was €13.11, and August was only €9.16. Once autumn started, the bill climbed again, and September reached €47.00.

Our household's electricity bills from January to September

So in China, the electricity bill feels like a straight line. In Finland, it is a curve shaped by the wind, the sun, and the hour of day. Sometimes close to zero. Sometimes a spike. Occasionally negative for a while.

For me, the bill is no longer just a number. It is a record of when we cooked, when we ran the heat, which days the wind was blowing over the Baltic. Not something I track obsessively, but something I actually read now — which is more than I can say for any utility bill I had in China.