Darkest Days of Winter Have Finland Bracing for Blackouts

  • Authorities have warned Nordic country may see rolling outages
  • End of Russian power imports have made Finland more vulnerable
The snow-covered center of Helsinki in January.Photographer: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

In the dead of winter, Finland can be a miserable place. Temperatures often dip below -20C, and in the darkest months of the year, Helsinki gets less than six hours of light a day.

To fight the elements, Finland has become the most energy-intensive economy in the EU. But with winter approaching, the country is bracing for rolling blackouts, planned in response to Russian energy cuts. Although Russian energy only made up a small fraction of Finland’s total supply, its loss threatens to have a huge impact, and Finns are being forced to choose between bad options.