On 18 September 2026, the Finnish Government published for comments a draft amending the Finnish Electricity Market Act (the “Draft Amendment”) which would introduce a priority mechanism establishing rules for determining projects seeking a grid connection in Finland. In the following, our Energy & Infrastructure team analyses the Draft Amendment, focusing on aspects which we have deemed most interesting from the perspective of developers and operators of data centres and other large electricity consumption projects.
Scope and purpose
The Draft Amendment, on which interested parties are invited to provide comments by 9 October 2026, aims to safeguard the efficient use of grid capacity among competing needs where capacity is scarce. The Draft Amendment provides that this is due to the existing legislation not guiding electricity consumption projects to be situated in areas where sufficient grid capacity is available.
The Amendment would introduce a priority mechanism that the grid operator must apply when handling connection requests for electricity consumption sites and electricity storage facilities, whether for a new connection or an increase in the capacity of an existing connection. Accordingly, any connection requests made to the Finnish transmission system operator Fingrid, high-voltage distribution system operators and distribution system operators would fall within the priority mechanism; closed distribution grids and their holders are excluded, although a closed distribution grid holder must still supply the connecting operator with the information it needs to apply the priority mechanism.
The mechanism does not apply to the connection of power plants. Where a connection serves both an electricity consumption site or an electricity storage facility and a power plant, the priority group into which the connection request is sorted is to be determined based on the connection’s main purpose.
Importantly, the Draft Amendment would not restrict access to the grid as such. The grid operator’s existing connection obligation would remain unchanged, and the Draft Amendment does not affect who is entitled to connect to the grid. Instead, the priority mechanism governs only the order in which the grid operator processes connection requests, offers grid capacity, and develops the grid where capacity cannot be offered to all applicants at the same time.
Four priority groups
The Draft Amendment introduces four priority groups, listed as follows:
| Priority group | Scope | Processing |
| Group 1 (highest priority) | Electricity consumption projects with a connection off-take capacity of up to 3 MW; data centres of up to 1 MW; electricity consumption sites serving activities critical to society; storage facilities of up to 100 kVA; and storage facilities connected to a power plant complex that are not charged from the grid. | Processed in arrival order (unchanged from current practice). The grid operator must reserve capacity for this group’s anticipated growth before offering capacity to other groups. |
| Group 2 | Electricity consumption sites with off-take capacity over 3 MW and up to 100 MW; data centres over 1 MW and up to 10 MW. Also includes consumption sites and data centres above these thresholds if the applicant’s flexibility commitment covers at least 80% of the site’s peak power. | Processed in batches twice a year; ranked within the group by location, and by any flexibility or production commitment given. |
| Group 3 | Electricity consumption sites and data centres exceeding the Group 2 thresholds that do not qualify for Group 1 or 2. | Processed in batches twice a year; ranked within the group by location, and by any flexibility or production commitment given. |
| Group 4 (lowest priority) | Electricity storage facilities other than those in Group 1 (in practice, standalone storage facilities charged from the grid). Also includes a new connection request for the same connection point or consumption site as a connection agreement terminated for breach of a commitment, if made within five years of termination. | Ranked by location; the site’s or facility’s stage of development is also taken into account. |
Implications of the priority groups
Connection requests falling within Group 1 would be processed in order of arrival, as is largely the case today. Requests falling within Groups 2 and 3 would instead be processed in batches twice a year, based on location and any flexibility or production commitment given; within Group 2 and 3, batching allows requests to be compared against each other. Requests within Group 4 would be ranked based on location alone. In all groups, the grid operator must also take into account the stage of development of the relevant consumption site or storage facility.
The grid operator would offer available grid capacity in priority-group order, one group at a time, and within each group in priority order. Where capacity is insufficient to satisfy every request within the same priority group in full, capacity would be offered in priority order until exhausted, and any remaining capacity would then be split equally among the remaining requests in that group. Before offering capacity to other priority groups, the grid operator must reserve the capacity anticipated to be needed for the expected development of Group 1 connections, since Group 1 requests are not processed in batches and could otherwise be delayed by large connections in other groups.
The priority groups and priority order would also guide how the grid operator plans and develops the grid: grid development obligations would need to take the priority groups and priority order into account when reinforcing the grid to accommodate new electricity consumption sites and storage facilities.
Key takeaways
As indicated by the above table, data centres are subject to materially lower capacity thresholds than other electricity consumption sites: a data centre falls into Group 1 only up to 1 MW of off-take capacity (compared with 3 MW for other consumption sites) and into Group 2 only up to 10 MW (compared with 100 MW for other consumption sites). This is being justified by data centres’ typically very high and continuous load profile, their comparatively fast construction timelines relative to the grid reinforcement they require, and their greater locational flexibility compared with other similarly-sized industrial projects.
For developers and operators of data centres and other large electricity consumption projects, this means that:
- Location will materially affect priority ranking once a project exceeds the Group 1 threshold, since ranking within Groups 2 and 3 depends on location as well as any flexibility or production commitment offered.
- Voluntary flexibility commitments covering at least 10% of peak power or production commitments of at least 50% of the estimated annual electricity consumption covered by electricity produced at a power plant commissioned no more than 36 months before the commissioning of the electricity consumption site and located in the same area as the electricity consumption site can improve a request’s position within its priority group, and a flexibility commitment of at least 80% of peak power can move a request from Group 3 up into Group 2.
- These commitments bind the applicant for the entire operational life of the connection and are subject to ongoing monitoring by the grid operator, with a right for the grid operator to terminate the connection agreement for material non-compliance. As the grid operator has no direct access to organised marketplace bid data or to the production data of power plants located outside its own grid, the applicant is responsible for providing the grid operator with the information needed to verify compliance, such as bids submitted to the marketplace, production data, or electricity supply contracts, on an ongoing basis.
- Developers should expect connection requests in Groups 2 and 3 to be processed in twice-yearly batches rather than strictly on a first-come-first-served basis, which may slow down project timelines and sequencing, particularly in areas of grid capacity scarcity.
- Because the Amendment would also apply to pending connection requests where no binding agreement has yet been concluded, developers and operators with applications already in the pipeline should assess how the new priority groups would affect their position.
Timeline
- All stakeholders are invited to provide comments on the Draft Amendment by 9 October 2026.
- The finalised amendment is planned to enter into force on 1 January 2027. The amended rules would apply also to any connection requests made before this date, to the extent no binding grid connection agreement has been concluded.
- The grid operator would need to handle connection requests from other priority groups than Group 1 for the first time no later than on 31 December 2027.
Contacts
Our Energy & Infrastructure team is monitoring all developments affecting Finnish electricity market legislation and would be pleased to discuss the Draft Amendment and its potential implications to your project with you.
