Finland Proposes Four-Tier Grid Queue to Prioritise Homes and Storage Over Heavy Industry

Finland is moving to introduce a structured queue for grid connection, giving households and small consumers precedence over large industrial loads and standalone battery storage. The government has put forward amendments to the Finnish Electricity Market Act that would establish a tiered mechanism for allocating scarce network capacity among new consumers and storage operators — without changing rules for conventional generation.

Under the proposal, applicants would be sorted into four groups. The first covers residential users, small businesses, electric-vehicle charging points rated below 3 MW, data centres below 1 MW, and critical infrastructure. The second group takes in consumers drawing between 3 and 100 MW and mid-sized data centres; larger facilities could also qualify here if they commit to providing flexibility equivalent to at least 80 percent of their peak demand. The third group is reserved for the most energy-intensive industrial plants, while the fourth is set aside exclusively for grid-scale battery storage systems that are not co-located with generation assets and charge directly from the network.

Climate and Environment Minister Sari Multala said the framework is intended to encourage major energy users to site their facilities in regions where grid capacity is less constrained, easing pressure on congested areas.

The changes are proposed to take effect on 1 January 2027. A public consultation runs until 9 October, and the new rules are planned to apply retroactively to existing applications for which a connection agreement has not yet been signed by that date.

Source: PV Magazine